1.1169564-266446562
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. Image Credit: AP

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.

See more

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.

Read more

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.