2 foreigners killed

Two foreign women tourists were killed yesterday and four others were wounded when an assailant stabbed them at an Egyptian beach resort in the Sinai Peninsula, officials said.

The governor of Red Sea province, where the resort of Hurghada is located, said two "foreign residents" of the city were killed in the attack, a cabinet statement said.

Egypt's official Al-Ahram newspaper reported on its website that two Ukrainian female tourists died in the stabbing and that four others were injured.

The interior ministry said in a statement that the attacker, who had swum ashore, was arrested and was being questioned.

"We don't know his motives yet, he could be crazy or perturbed -- it's too early to tell," a senior interior ministry official told AFP.

In January 2016, three tourists in Hurghada were wounded in a stabbing assault by two assailants with apparent Islamic State group (IS) sympathies.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for yesterday's stabbing.

Hurghada is one of Egypt's most popular beach resorts, especially with Ukrainians and European tourists.

Also on Friday, unknown assailants shot dead five policemen south of Cairo, in the latest of a series of attacks targeting the country's security forces.