AL-ARISH: Egyptian border guards at the boundary with Gaza on Wednesday fatally shot two Africans, a man and a woman as they tried to illegally cross from Egypt into Hamas-controlled coastal strip, officials here said.
The guards opened fire at a group of eight Africans at the southern part of the border wall at Rafah, a town divided between the boundary on its Egyptian and Gazan part. The Africans were suspected of trying to use the commotion and the border free-for-all created after Hamas members last week blew up the border wall, enabling a flood of Palestinians into Egypt.
The migrants were likely trying to make it into Israel, the Egyptian officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to media.
One of the dead was identified as a 22-year-old man from Ivory Coast. The man bled to death after a bullet severed a main artery in his thigh, the officials said. The woman, who was at first seriously wounded, died a bit later at a local hospital, according to Imad Kharboush, head of the emergency unit in North Sinai.
Israel estimates that about 2,800 people have entered the country illegally across the desert border with Egypt in recent years in search for jobs, most of them from Africa, and has asked Egypt to work harder to stem the tide.
