Egyptian border guards fatally shot an African migrant and detained 14 others as they tried to cross the border into Israel on Friday, an Egyptian security official said.
Hundreds of Africans seeking political asylum and jobs try to illegally get into Israel every year, in long perilous desert trips, often with the help of Bedouin traffickers.
Egypt has killed dozens of migrants at the border in the past two years, drawing criticism from rights groups.
The security official said the shot migrant, whose nationality was not known, refused to surrender after guards fired warning shots to stop him early on Friday. A hospital official said the man was shot below the heart and in his right foot.
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.
The security official said an Eritrean companion travelling with the shot migrant was arrested at the same location near the border town of Rafah, while six Ethiopians and seven other Eritreans were detained nearby, also trying to cross into Israel on Friday.
According to the official, two of the detained Ethiopians told investigators they waited for 20 days in the Sinai desert with little access to water before their smugglers decided to take them across the Egypt-Israeli border. Each had paid the Sinai smugglers $500.
An 18-year-old Eritrean detainee told the investigators he had already been jailed before for two years for attempting to cross illegally into Israel, but still came back. Many Eritreans flee their country to avoid the military draft.
The London-based Amnesty International reported in August 2008 that more than 1 300 African migrants have been arrested and tried in Egyptian military courts for illegal border crossings. Some were deported forcefully, in what the group described as a violation of international human rights law.
The New-York based Human Rights Watch says Egyptian guards have shot dead 33 African migrants along the border in 2007/08, including a pregnant woman and a little girl. Egypt says it faces a security challenge with an increasing flux of sub-Saharan refugees. — Sapa-AP