Madrid Advises Spaniards Against Traveling to Egypt

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The Spanish Foreign Ministry recommended on Friday that its citizens refrain from traveling to Egypt for now, according to its updated travel advice.

The only exceptions have been made for the cities of Luxor and Aswan where the ministry estimates the risk level for travelers to be “medium.”

“However, in these two areas one should be extremely cautious,” the foreign ministry stressed.

The ministry also emphasized "the extreme danger of traveling through the north of the Sinai Peninsula" and warns against trying to "access to the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing, which remains closed until further notice."

Earlier, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands changed their travel advice regarding trips to Egypt, advising against traveling to the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh via the local airport due to fears that the Russian A321 passenger plane, which crashed last week soon after departing from this airport, may have been brought down by a bomb.

The Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade updated its travel advice for Egypt on Thursday, advising against all non-essential trips to Egypt.

On Saturday, an Airbus A321 operated by the Russian airline Kogalymavia under the brand name Metrojet, crashed in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. All 224 people on board were killed in what has become the largest civil aviation disaster in Russian and Soviet history