Egyptian police have shot dead two Africans, one a seven-year-old girl, in the Sinai Peninsula as they tried to cross the border illegally into Israel, a security official said.

Officers opened fire on Saturday on the Sudanese child and an African man in his thirties whose nationality was not immediately known, killing both on the spot.

The girl's mother who was not hit by bullets was arrested.

Police had fired on the group because they failed to stop when ordered to do so.

The latest deaths take to 16 the number of migrants killed by Egyptian police on the border with Israel this year, the official said.

Over the past year, Egypt has arrested dozens of illegal immigrants, mostly Africans, trying to cross into Israel from the Sinai in search of work.

The 250km frontier between Israel and Egypt is notoriously porous and often used by drugs smugglers and people traffickers.

In February, Amnesty International, a human rights group, slammed Egypt's use of force at the border.