CAIRO, Feb 3 – Egyptian police shot dead a Sudanese migrant near the border with Israel as they traded fire with human traffickers, a security official said on Wednesday.
The 27-year-old migrant was shot dead when he tried to flee into Israel late on Tuesday. None of the policemen were wounded in the exchange. The traffickers and at least four other migrants escaped, the official said.
He was the third migrant killed this year while trying to enter Israel.
Egyptian border guards often shoot at African migrants who pay smugglers for passage into Israel. The traffickers sometimes fire at police as a distraction.
Police killed at least 19 migrants along the border last year. The migrants, many of them from Eritrea, Ethiopia or Sudan, say they want to escape poverty and discrimination in Egypt.
Israel has insisted that Egypt clamp down on the traffic, and has approved construction of barriers along the two countries\’ 250-kilometre (155-mile) border.
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