Five people were killed in a road accident late on Tuesday when two microbuses collided on a highway near Al-Bergaya village in southern Egypt's Minya Governorate, a security official told Ahram Online.

Seventeen others were injured, the official who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

Largely blamed on lax enforcement of traffic laws and poorly developed roads, road traffic accidents have grown rampant in Egypt.

Traffic crashes claim the lives of 12,000 people yearly around the country, according to a 2012 World Health Organisation (WHO) report on road safety.

Egypt is one of 10 countries listed in the WHO Road Safety project to be conducted over five years by a consortium of six international partners.