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Two Israelis killed, several injured in crash outside Batumi, Georgia
Minibus carrying Israeli tourists collides with truck on road near Makhuntseti waterfall in south of rugged Caucasus country
Two Israeli tourists were killed in Georgia when a minibus they were riding in collided with another vehicle in the south of the mountainous country Friday, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said.
Some 15 others were injured in the crash, which took place on a road some 40 kilometers from Batumi, where the tourists had been headed to sightsee at the Makhuntseti Waterfall, the Ynet news site reported.
The crash occurred when the minibus they were in collided with a truck, the local Batumelebi news site reported. The cause of the crash was not reported.
It was not immediately clear how many of the injured were Israeli. No details about the two fatalities were released.
The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem said it was working to gather details about the crash and an Israeli consular official was on the way to the scene from the embassy in Tbilisi.
The crash occurred days before the Jewish New Year, with many Israelis traveling for the holiday.
Georgia, which sits at the crossroads of Europe and Asia in the Caucuses, has become an increasingly popular tourist destination for Israelis in recent years, drawn by the hiking and its spectacular mountain scenery.
In October 2016, two Israeli children were killed and four other members of the same family seriously injured when the car they were in plunged into a gorge in the remote mountainous Tusheti region in the northeast part of the country during a storm.
