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| By: Associated Press |
| Published: June 13, 2006 |
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Egypt arrested 13 foreigners trying to cross into Israel early Monday to seek asylum, a security official said.
The 13 were captured at dawn trying to climb over a coil of barbed wire that lines the border between Israel and Egypt in the northeast Sinai desert, police said.
The spot is south of the official border-crossing with Israel, and some 25 miles east of El Arish, where the group was dropped off by a Bedouin gang of smugglers, officials said.
The detainees included 11 Chinese and two men from Ghana, another official said. The Ghanaians were students at Cairo's Al-Azhar Islamic University, he said.
All were seeking asylum in Israel, and were being held in El Arish, officials said.
Egypt has long accused Bedouin tribes in Sinai of smuggling weapons, drugs and people across the border into Israel and the Gaza Strip.
Egypt and Israel frequently accuse one another of not doing enough to seal their border and stop smuggling. |
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