Russia, Egypt reach preliminary understanding on compensation to relatives of 2015 plane attack victims

CAIRO - 17 September 2021: Russia and Egypt have reached a preliminary understanding concerning compensation for the families of the victims who were killed in the terrorist attack that targeted a passenger plane flying over Sinai in 2015.

 

“The Russian Embassy in Cairo managed to reach a fundamental understanding with the Egyptian partners on this issue. At present, specific details of the procedure for making voluntary payments through the Federation of Tourism Chambers of Egypt are being worked out,” she said in a statement on Wednesday.

 

In late October 2015, a bomb downed a Russian flight carrying holidaymakers from the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, killing all 224 people on board, mostly Russian tourists. The attack was claimed by the Islamic State terrorist group. Since then, the flights between the two countries have been suspended. 

 

However, President Abdel Fattah El Sisi and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin agreed in a phone call in April 2021, to fully resume flights between the two countries, especially to the coastal cities of Hurghada and Sharm El Sheikh, after six years of hiatus to these touristic destinations.

 

More Russian airlines opened regular flights between Russia and Sharm El-Sheikh and Hurghada, Russian news agency TASS reported, citing the Federal Air Transport Agency as saying in August, 2021.