01 September 2009

Egypt police kill African at border, wound another

ISMAILIA, Egypt, Sept 1 (Reuters) - Egyptian police shot and killed an African migrant near the border with Israel on Tuesday, seriously wounded a women he was travelling with and arrested eleven others, medical and security sources said.

A security source said an Egyptian patrol spotted 13 migrants attempting to cross the barbed wire border with Israel. When ordered to stop they fled towards Israeli territory and police opened fire, the source said.

The man who died was shot in the head. He did not have identification documents on him. An 18-year-old Eritrean women was shot in the chest and was transferred to a hospital in Egyptian Rafah, where her condition was reported as critical.

The other migrants, ten Ethiopians and one Eritrean, were detained. Egypt has arrested scores of African migrants, mostly from Eritrea and Ethiopia, in recent months and has killed at least eight this year.

Analysts and aid workers say the flow of migrants from the Horn of Africa through Egypt to Israel has increased as it has become more difficult to travel on other routes, such as via Libya to Europe. (Reporting by Yusri Mohamed; writing by Alastair Sharp; editing by Robin Pomeroy)