• Published 00:00 05.08.07
  • Latest update 00:00 05.08.07

Report: Egypt detains Sudanese woman who tried to enter Israel

Official Egyptian news agency: Refugee was trying to cross into Israel with her 2-year-old daughter.

By The Associated Press

Egyptian police detained a Sudanese woman as she tried to cross the border into Israel with her 2-year-old daughter on Sunday, Egypt's official news agency reported.

Police identified the woman as Merry Demis Locko, 27, a Sudanese refugee from the war-torn Darfur area, the Middle East News Agency said.

The arrest comes three days after Channel 10 television reported that Egyptian soldiers murdered three Sudanese refugees, beating two to death in front of horrified Israel Defense Forces soldiers, screening what it said was army surveillance video and interviews with the soldiers.

Egyptian police told The Associated Press that authorities arrested two Sudanese refugees Thursday, seriously injuring one when he scuffled with police.

Without specifically mentioning the incident, a spokesman for Egypt's Foreign Ministry on Saturday accused Israel of trying to drive a wedge in Egypt's relations with Sudan. The spokesman did not confirm or deny the Israeli media report.

But he said the Egyptian government was implementing laws to try to stem an increasing influx of Sudanese refugees trying to cross into Israel.

Hundreds of Sudanese refugees, many from the war-wracked Darfur region, have crossed the desert border from Egypt into Israel in recent months.

Last month, Egyptian border guards shot and killed a Sudanese woman and wounded four others. She was the first Sudanese refugee to be killed.

Israel estimates that 2,800 people have entered the country illegally through its Sinai Peninsula border in recent years, nearly all from Africa. The number shot up in the past two months, apparently as word spread of job opportunities in Israel. As many as 50 people arrived each day in June, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Many Sudanese find life difficult in Egypt, a country that struggles to provide jobs and social services for a growing refugee population. Egyptian riot police violently cleared a refugee encampment in central Cairo in 2005, killing nearly 30 people.

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  • 7. 0 0
    5. Palestinian Brit; On hypocrecy
    • KUTW
    • 05.08.07
    • 22:46

    So you criticise Israel because it calls them migrants instead of refugees. But you do not criticise Egypt for mistreating and killing them.

  • 6. 0 0
    Ecomomic Migrants
    • Palestinian Brits
    • 05.08.07
    • 22:02

    Stop complaining! The top notch countries in the world suffer from economic migrants. If they are coming to Israel it means you have "arrived!" And you can easily use your Zionist/Racist laws to justify not taking them.

  • 5. 0 0
    Darfur - where's the compassion now?
    • Palestinian Brit
    • 05.08.07
    • 22:00

    Now where are we on this one? One minute bleating about the British not letting in Jewish refugees from the Holocaust, and now Israeli's calling would be refugees from the worst area of human rights abuses in the world, ECONOMIC MIGRANTS! How's that for hypocrisy!

  • 4. 0 0
    I have heard no protests
    • KUTW
    • 05.08.07
    • 21:28

    ?Egyptian riot police violently cleared a refugee encampment in central Cairo in 2005, killing nearly 30 people.?

  • 3. 0 0
    wow - even ha'aretz admits they are economic migrants...
    • Dan Stern
    • 05.08.07
    • 19:46

    quote: The number shot up in the past two months, apparently as word spread of job opportunities in Israel.

  • 2. 0 0
    WHERE IS INDRAJAYA?
    • B
    • 05.08.07
    • 18:11

    I notice Indrajaya is very careful to NEVER criticise fellow Muslims, no matter how heinous the crime. She has one very low standard for Muslims in their massacres of blacks in Darfur and natives from her home country of Indonesia, and another for Jews. What a complete hypocrite.

  • 1. 0 0
    At first they find explosives in the Sinai, and now they
    • Danny
    • 05.08.07
    • 17:33

    detain a Sudanese woman. Finally they do what a government should do and I wish, as an Israeli, to express my appreciation for these deeds. I only hope they will be more effective in stopping the cross border transfer of weapons, money and people between the Sinai and the Gaza Strip. May be the best way to do it is, in collaboration with Israel, take control of the Gaza Strip and incorporate it into Egypt now.