The EU is set to fund Egypt’s coast guard with 80 million euros in an effort to prevent rising levels of migration across the Mediterranean, according to an internal paper. 

The paper alleged that more than 3,500 Egyptians have fled the country so far this year, almost all of them taking the dangerous sea route to Italy. 

An Egyptian political prisoner is on an open-ended hunger strike after being denied treatment for cancerous tumours in his body.