Egypt border guards shoot Sudanese migrants

Egyptian side of the Qastal-Ashkeet crossing. Sudan and Egypt on Thursday officially inaugurated Qastal-Ashkeet border crossing linking the two countries after a trial period of six months. (Xinhua/Mohamed Khidir)

Egyptian border forces have shot dead five Sudanese migrants trying to cross from Egypt’s North Sinai region into Israel on 24th November, the Egyptian military said in a statement.

“Law enforcement tasked with protecting the border spotted at dawn today a group of Africans trying to sneak though the international border in cooperation with criminal elements involved in illegal immigration,” the military said.

“The force fired several warning shots and moved to arrest those trespassers who shot at the security force. The force engaged them, killing five, injuring six and arresting five more. All of them were Sudanese.”

It appears that the migrants were with people smugglers who opened fire on the border guards when they attempted to arrest the group.

While earlier this month in 15 November, Egyptian police found the bodies of 15 Sudanese migrants who appeared to have been shot dead in the same region, security sources said at the time. They said another eight migrants had been wounded. It was not clear who had attacked the migrants and the circumstances of these deaths haven’t been fully explained.

The official governmental newspaper for Egypt “Al-Ahram” haven’t reported on either incidents, the same goes for a number of other news outlets in the region, on the other hand, Sudanese newspapers and media outlets reported both incidents intensively marking the attitude change towards Egyptians from Sudanese people and government.

When reporting either incidents, Sudanese media outlets such as “Sudan Tribune” or “Kelmti” reported that both incidents were caused by Egyptian forces, when reports for the first incident were never released. According to Sudan Tribune, Sudanese diplomats and embassy started investigating both incidents shortly afterwards. A spokesperson of the Sudanese ministry of Foreign Affairs said that they will not tolerate any mistreatment of its citizens in Egypt.

Sudanese parliament started to use a different tone in dealing with Egypt, urging the government to cut ties with Egypt. Seeing how Sudanese are mistreated in Egypt, whether on the streets or in police stations, where there has been reports of Sudanese detainees tortured.

Abu Al-Kasem Bartma, a Sudanese parliament member said, “Sudan should start caring for itself and its own benefits. When Egyptians come to Sudan they’re treated better than native people, but when Sudanese go to Egypt, they’re treated like a lower third-class citizen.”