Cairo: At least 19 people were killed after a boat collided with a barge and capsized on the Nile river near here, Egypt’s interior ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

The collision happened near Giza late Wednesday. The boat was carrying at least 30 passengers, said Hossam Abdel Ghaffar, the spokesman of the Egyptian health ministry.

The spokesman also said 16 ambulances and two rescue boats have been dispatched to the site and the search for the missing ones is still underway, Xinhua news agency reported.

Eyewitnesses told Xinhua that rescue boats and divers are working to search for the missing ones. However, the poor illumination and crowded river bank made the rescue work more difficult.

There were many children on the boat, the security and hospital sources added, without giving the ages of the two children who died.

Police said they have have arrested the captain of the cargo boat and his deputy after the accident, one of many that happen on the Nile and off Egypt’s coast each year.

In the worst such accident in February 2006, an Egyptian ferry sank in the Red Sea, killing more than 1,000 people.