Five German tourists and two Egyptians were killed in a bus crash near an Egyptian Red Sea resort on Sunday, police officials said. Berlin's foreign ministry confirmed that Germans had died in the accident, without specifying the number. The tourists died when two mini-buses crashed inside a resort near the popular tourist destination Hurghada, officials said.

A number of tourists were also wounded in the crash, they said, without giving further details.

"We unfortunately have to convey that German citizens have been killed and... injured in an accident on the Egyptian coast of the Red Sea," a German foreign ministry spokesman said.

"Foreign Minister (Guido) Westerwelle has activated the foreign ministry's crisis management group. The German ambassador is on the way to the site of the accident," he added. Road accidents are common in Egypt, largely due to bad road conditions and lax enforcement of traffic laws. On Friday, two Russian tourists were killed when their bus overturned near the Sinai resort of Nuweiba, police said. And on November 17, 47 Egyptian school children were killed when a train smashed into their bus in central Egypt.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2012