EL-ARISH, Egypt (AP) – Egyptian authorities shot and killed a Sudanese man trying to cross into Israel for work and detained eight other Africans early Monday, a security and hospital officials said.
Border guards opened fire at a group of nine people south of the Rafah crossing point, killing Adam Othman Mohammed, 29, while he was trying to cut through the barbed wire after they ignored warning shots fired into the air, said a security official, speaking on the customary condition of anonymity.
Mohammed was shot in the head and arrived dead at the Rafah central hospital, said Imad Kharboush, head of the North Sinai’s emergency unit.
One of the detained eight is Abraha Taha, 19, from Ethiopia and the rest are Eritreans including two women, Huda Barakat, 28, and Mariam Sadiq, 26.
In a separate incident, border guards shot and critically wounded Ibrahim Afwerki, 32, Eritrean, while he was trying to get into Israel from the central Sinai border area. He was taken to El-Arish general hospital, Kharboush said.
Dozens of African migrants have been detained over the past year as they have tried to cross into Israel from the Sinai desert, and seven have been killed this year by Egyptian border guards.
The Africans began trickling into Israel in 2005, after neighboring Egypt quashed a demonstration by a group of Sudanese refugees and in recent months, the number has surged as word spread of job opportunities in Israel.
Israel last year asked Egypt to do more to stem the tide.
More than 7,000 African migrants have entered the Jewish state illegally in just over a year, including at least 2,000 since January, according to U.N. officials in Israel.