Egypt police kill Togolese migrant at Israel border

Egyptian border police shot dead a Togolese migrant as he tried to enter Israel illegally, a security official said on Saturday.

The 25-year-old was shot in the head near the border, just south of the Gaza Strip, the official said.Egyptian police have killed at least 28 migrants, most of them Sudanese and Eritrean, at the border this year. None of them was armed.

"A police patrol was conducting a routine search operation at the border and found a man trying to cross the barbed wire fence," the official said, adding that the man was shot after he ignored orders to halt.

The porous 250-kilometre (155-mile) border has become a major transit route for migrants, asylum-seekers and drug smugglers, and Israel has asked Egypt to clamp down on the traffic.

Egypt's policy of shooting migrants has generated harsh criticism from human rights groups. The migrants say they try to leave Egypt because of poverty and racism.