CAIRO: Egyptian police have detained 114 sub-Saharan African migrants who were found packed into a single truck in the Sinai peninsula, the state news agency MENA reported on Monday.

Police regularly detain or shoot African migrants who try to enter Israel illegally from the Sinai.

“During a search of the vehicle, the group of Africans was discovered,” MENA quoted a police official as saying, without giving a date.

The truck driver, who was also arrested, denied knowing he had any passengers when he was stopped between the Sinai towns of Ismailiya and El-Arish, close to the border with Israel.

Human rights groups have criticised Egypt’s policy of shooting and detaining migrants and have also accused the authorities of deporting migrants to countries where they face human rights violations.

Police have killed at least 28 migrants, none of them armed, so far this year along the border with Israel.

Many of the migrants say they want to leave Egypt because of poverty and racism.—AFP