EL-ARISH: Egyptian police on Tuesday fatally shot a Sudanese woman and arrested a second one who was with an infant as they tried to cross into Israel, a security official said.The shooting took place a few kilometers south of the Rafah border crossing point when the slain Sudanese women from the war-torn Darfur refused to surrender to police, the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn t allowed to talk to the media.Imad Kharboush, head of El-Arish emergency unit said the unidentified slain woman was shot three times, including once in the head.The police failed to capture the traffickers, whom the women paid about $500 each for shelter and passage from Cairo across Sinai to the Israeli border, the security official said.Hundreds of African refugees hope to make it to Israel to seek political asylum and jobs there.Dozens of African migrants have been detained over the past year and at least six have been killed this year by Egyptian border guards.On Monday, a Sudanese man was shot in the stomach also near the Rafah crossing. He was part of a group of five Sudanese men trying to cross into Israel illegally. They cut the barbed wire at the boundary and the four other Sudanese men got across. The wounded man was taken to the nearby El-Arish general hospital where he underwent surgery.Kharboush said the wounded Sudanese, who has been identified as Abdullah Shukar Abdullah, 23.Africans began trickling into Israel in 2005, after Egyptian authorities quashed a demonstration by a group of Sudanese refugees. In recent months, the number has surged as word spread of job opportunities in Israel.More than 7,000 African migrants have entered the Jewish state illegally in just over a year, including at least 2,000 since January, according to UN officials in Israel.Israel has asked Egypt to do more to stem the tide.
