Smuggling operation turns sour: 1 dead, 5 arrested

Libyan border guards chased the Tunisian youth and fired at him according to eye witnesses. Tunis – Mohamed Saleh A Tunisian national was killed in the early hours of Sunday in Ben Gardane on the Tunisian-Libyan borders after Libyan police caught a group smuggling alcohol in the country.Libyan border guards chased the Tunisian youth and fired at him according to eye witnesses. Eye witnesses told Arabstoday that the smugglers did not follow Libyan security orders to stop and attempted to drive away. The guards chased them and fired at them, causing the smugglers' truck to overturn.
The young Tunisian died immediately while the security squad arrested the other five smugglers.
The Libyan security squad had discovered two Tunisian trucks loaded with alcohol heading towards Libya.
The Tunisian authorities closed the Ras Ajdir border crossing straight after the incident, as the authorities fear a violent reaction in Ben Gardane, where the victim comes from. A source told Arabstoday that Tunisian citizens were subject to beatings and attacks and that their car was smashed inside Libya yesterday immediately after the incident. Sources from Ben Gardane asserted that some kidnapped Libyan families in the border city as a reaction for what happened on Libyan soil.
Tunisian security forces are making huge efforts and patrolling Ben Gardane to free the kidnapped Libyans whose location was not specified.
Al-Haqf area on the Tunisian-Libyan border, close to Ben Gardane area in the south east, had witnessed two days ago a Libyan security squad arresting seven Tunisians and taking them to a security checkpoint for sneaking into the borders.
The seven Tunisians arrested by Libyan security authorities were active smugglers especially in smuggling fuel between Tunisian and Libya. The smugglers belonged to Ben Gardane area close to the Ras Ajdir border crossing between the two countries.
Serious efforts by officials in the two countries resulted in releasing the seven smugglers only a day after they were arrested.
This area is known for different smuggling operations of fuel, livestock and others, along the borders between Tunisian and Libya.
This was not the first arrest; the last took place a month ago where officials in the two countries placed the interest of the country as a priority and preferred to release the arrested before Eid Al-Fitr.