Mohamed Salah scored twice after Ibrahim Adel opened the scoring as Egypt beat the small Red Sea nation in Casablanca to take top place in Group A, ahead of Burkina Faso, which won 1-0 away over Sierra Leone.

Egypt, which has been to three previous FIFA World Cups, has an unassailable 23 points in an unbeaten campaign and joins the already qualified Morocco and Tunisia at next year’s tournament in North America.

Tiny Cape Verde will have to wait five more days, however, before getting a last chance to secure its first World Cup spot after it drew 3-3 away in a thrilling Group D encounter in Libya.

Ghana, which reached the quarter-finals in 2010, maintained its three-point advantage over Madagascar in Group I as it beat the Central African Republic 5-0 in Meknes while the Malagasy won 2-1 over Comoros Islands amid a torrential downpour in Abidjan.

Ghana only needs a point from its last group fixture home to Comoros in Accra after defender Mohammed Salisu headed it into the lead in the 20th minute and Thomas Partey, Alexander Djiku, Jordan Ayew and Kamaldeen Sulemana added more in the second half.

Cape Verde should have won in Tripoli in stoppage-time, and secured a fairytale FIFA World Cup spot, but was denied by a wrong offside call when it had four players clear on a counter-attack in the last minute.

It had fought back from 3-1 down early in the second half to level with eight minutes to go and also had an effort cleared off the line in stoppage-time.

But it will become the second smallest nation to qualify for a FIFA World Cup if it beats Eswatini at home next Tuesday (AEDT).

Cape Verde moved on to 20 points, two ahead of second-placed Cameroon, which took almost an hour before Nicolas Ngamaleu opened the scoring with Bryan Mbeumo adding a second in stoppage-time to win 2-0 away in Mauritius.

Angola, which is going to the Africa Cup of Nations at the end of the year, had to fight back to avoid an embarrassing loss at Eswatini drawing 2-2 in the first match in charge for new coach Patrice Beaumelle.

Mali won 2-0 at Chad and Ethiopia was a 1-0 winner over Guinea Bissau in other clashes.