Another 55 passengers were injured in the accident which happened on Saturday 40 kilometres southwest of Cairo, at Al-Ayyat, near the village of Guerzah.

The trains were travelling on the same track, and were both headed in the same direction.

After one, nearly empty train stopped unexpectedly the second, a first class train full of passengers which was also heading south from Cairo, the capital, ploughed into it from behind.

Sheikh Mohamed Tantawi, dean of al-Azhar university, called full-face veiling a custom that has nothing to do with the Islamic faith.

Although most Muslim women in Egypt wear the Islamic headscarf, increasing numbers are adopting the niqab as well.

The practice is widely associated with more radical trends of Islam.

The niqab question reportedly arose when Sheikh Tantawi was visiting a girls’ school in Cairo at the weekend and asked one of the students to remove her niqab.

The man trundles through the stink of fish, past meat hanging in the sun, slowing a bit under the weight. Trash trailing off him, he teeters around a corner and disappears into a parade of bent men. Sacks drop in sunlight and flies gather in dark, humming whirls. Hands scrape plastic, rip cardboard, but a sound is missing.