Father kills his 3 children by putting them in front of speeding train in Egypt

Cairo: An Egyptian father, believed to be mentally unstable, had killed his three little children, by placing them in front of a speeding train south of the Egyptian capital, security sources said.

The 50-year-old man, a driver, threw the children Friday on the tracks of the train in the southern province of Malawi and fled, they added. The children aged, four, six and 8 years, were killed on the spot and their bodies transferred to a hospital morgue. The train was on a journey from the southern city of Luxor to Cairo, according to media reports.

Initial investigations revealed that the man is mentally ill and has been receiving treatment for about a year now. Police later arrested the suspect, who is being interrogated.

In recent years, Egyptian media has reported a series of family killings in the conservative country.

Last week, a farm worker admitted to having killed his mother, wife and three daughters before setting the family house on fire in southern Egypt, to remarry another woman.

Earlier this year, a psychologically ill woman fatally threw her two children from the four-floor balcony of her house north of Cairo before she leaped after them. The 33-year-old mother died later of injuries at a local hospital. Last year, a criminal court sentenced a medical doctor to death by hanging after he was convicted of killing his wife and three children in the Nile Delta province of Kafr Al Shaikh.