Egyptian police shot dead two sub-Saharan migrants, one of them Sudanese, as they tried to cross illegally into Israel, police officials and medics said on Thursday.

The men were shot dead Wednesday night as they tried to climb over barbed wire along the border, they said, adding that they had not yet identified the second dead migrant. Five Sudanese migrants in the group were arrested.

About 11 sub-Saharan migrants seeking better lives have been killed this year trying to cross the porous border into Israel, which has asked Egypt to clamp down on migrant traffic and smuggling.

That is a drop from 2010, in which Egyptian police had shot dead at least 28 migrants by August.

Rather than a change in the much-criticised policy of shooting unarmed migrants, the lower death toll has been attributed to laxer policing because the revolt that overthrew president Hosni Mubarak in February targeted police stations.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch said last year that Egyptian police have killed at least 85 migrants near the border since 2007.