AL-ARISH: Egyptian border forces arrested 44 African migrants on Sunday as they tried to cross the dangerous desert border into Israel in the hope of finding work, a security official said.
Fifteen Eritreans, including four women, and an Ethiopian man were arrested by a dawn patrol along the porous border in the Sinai peninsula, the official said.
Twenty-eight others, from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Sudan, were arrested later in the day at a different location along the 250-km frontier, the official said.
In recent months Egypt has arrested scores of illegal immigrants, mostly Africans, trying to sneak into Israel from the Sinai in search of work. Several have been killed while trying to cross the frontier.
In February, human rights group Amnesty International slammed Egypt’s use of force at the border. -AFP
