Gunmen in Egypt's western desert province of New Valley Governorate attack a military checkpoint, killing at least 21 soldiers. Egypt reportedly declares a state of emergency on its border with Sudan.
The 2014 Farafra ambush (also called 2014 Al-Wadi Al-Gedid attack) occurred on 19 July 2014 when unidentified gunmen ambushed a desert checkpoint in the Farafra Oasis Road in Egypt's New Valley Governorate. Twenty-two border guards were killed in the attack, which was one of the biggest since the July 2013 ouster of Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi and the second at the same checkpoint in less than three months.
New Valley Governorate or El Wadi El Gedid Governorate (Arabic: محافظة الوادي الجديد [moˈħɑfzet elˈwæːdi lɡɪˈdiːd], Muḥāfaẓah al Wādī al Jadīd) is one of the governorates of Egypt. It is in the southwestern part of the country, in the south of Egypt Western Desert (part of the Sahara Desert), between the Nile, northern Sudan, and southeastern Libya.
Consisting of roughly half of Egypt's area, this spacious governorate is the country's largest and most sparsely populated, and one of the biggest subnational divisions on the African continent, as well as the world. At 440,098 square kilometers in area, New Valley Governorate is just slightly larger than the country of Iraq. The capital is at the Kharga Oasis. New Valley Governate is named after the New Valley Project, which aims to irrigate parts of the Western Desert.