UN slams Egypt for killing African migrants

Rights chief Navi Pillay says pattern of deaths suggests a "shoot-to-kill policy."

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
The United Nations has slammed Egypt for killing 60 African migrants trying to reach Israel through the Sinai Desert since 2007.
UN rights chief Navi Pillay told Egypt Tuesday to stop firing at Ethiopians, Eritreans and Sudanese near the Egypt-Israel border.
She said she knows "no other country where so many unarmed migrants and asylum seekers appear to have been deliberately killed."
An Egyptian official said guards killed an African migrant last week trying to reach Israel.
Hundredsof Africans seek asylum or jobs in Israel each year, making long,perilous desert trips often aided by Bedouin traffickers.
Pillay said Tuesday the pattern of killings suggested a "shoot-to-kill policy."
"Sixty killings can hardly be an accident,” she said in a statement.