Ethiopian migrant shot on Egyptian-Israeli border

Sep 19, 2009, 10:42 GMT

Al-Arish, Egypt - Egyptian border guards shot and wounded an Ethiopian man as he tried to cross illegally into Israel, police told the German Press Agency dpa on Saturday.

The 20-year-old was trying to cross the border with a group of other migrants from several African countries when border guards ordered them to stop. When the group failed to do so, police said, a border guard shot the Ethiopian man in the foot.

The man was taken to hospital in al-Arish, on Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip.

The rest of the Ethiopian's party escaped into the Sinai desert, police said, adding that the wounded man had told them that he and the others in his group had paid 1,000 US dollars each to smugglers in exchange for help crossing the border into Israel.

Residents of towns near Egypt's border with Israel, which stretches along 250 kilometres of desert, said they had noticed tighter security and heavier police presence along the border in recent days.

The shootings on the border have repeatedly drawn condemnation from international human rights groups.

'Attempted border crossings are not a capital offense,' said Joe Stork, associate Mideast director at the New York-based pressure group Human Rights Watch, after border guards killed four migrants on the border on September 9.

The London-based watchdog Amnesty International says nearly 40 migrants have been killed trying to cross into Israel from Egypt since 2008. Israeli groups say thousands more have succeeded in crossing illegally.