CAIRO, Jun 16 (Aswat Masriya) – Two Egyptian policemen were killed by gunmen on Thursday morning in the city of al-Arish in Egypt's North Sinai province, the interior ministry said in a statement.

Four masked men stormed the policemen’s house and shot them dead, the ministry added in the statement that was published on its official Facebook page.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack as of yet.

Militancy inside Egypt has seen a significant surge since the July 2013 military ouster of former president Mohamed Mursi, who hails from the Muslim Brotherhood, following mass protests against his rule. North Sinai has been at the epicenter of this insurgency. 

The North Sinai affiliate of the Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), known as Sinai Province, has claimed responsibility for most of the attacks in the area. 

The Egyptian armed forces, in collaboration with the interior ministry, have launched wide security campaigns to fight the insurgency in Sinai.

According to multiple separate statements by the armed forces, Egyptian security forces have killed hundreds of militants in the border province over the past two years.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi issued a presidential decree in May to extend the state of emergency in North Sinai for three more months.

Sisi had declared the state of emergency and a curfew in the border province for an initial three months in October 2014, in reaction to a militant attack that killed 33 security personnel, and has extended it several times since.