EL-ARISH, Egypt (AFP) -- Egyptian police shot dead a Sudanese man on Tuesday as he tried to sneak across the border into Israel, a security official said.

Mohammed Taher Mersal, 30, was shot as he tried to enter Israel from an area south of the Egyptian town of Rafah, the official told AFP.
""He was taken to El-Arish hospital (in north Sinai) but died shortly after arriving there,"" he said, adding that three other Sudanese nationals traveling with Mersal were arrested and taken for questioning.
In recent months Egypt has arrested dozens of illegal immigrants, mostly Africans, trying to cross into Israel from the Sinai in search of work. Several have been killed.