By Ajnadin Mustafa.
Tripoli, 27 May 2015:
There was a spate of car-jackings in Sebha yesterday which in two cases resulted in the owners . . .[restrict]being shot dead.
Altogether five cars were stolen during the day although there were also attempts to carjack another four. It is thought the same armed gang was involved in all nine incidents.
In addition to the car thefts, one man was robbed of LD 3,000 in front of Agricultural Bank and another had LD 5,000 stolen from him when he was forced to stop his vehicle in the town’s Manshiya district.
It was in two of the attempted car jackings that the killings occurred. In one case a local man, named as Abdel-Salam Ali Rhouma, was shot he was trying to run away after his Hyundai Verna was stopped in Jamal Street by armed men, allegedly sub-Saharan Africans. They then fled without the vehicle.
The other killing when the gang stopped a Toyota Hilux in Manshiya.
Manshiya was also where they carjacked a KIA Cerato and tried to carjack a Hyundai Verna. They tried but failed to grab another Verna in front of the banking school, but succeed in stealing one in Mahdia district where three other vehicles were also grabbed. There were thefts too in front of a local clinic and outside a store.
According to the local police, no one dared intervene because people in the town are afraid for their lives. Sebha has seen a surge in crime in recent months although the maximum for carjackings there until now has been around one a day, occasionally two.
The police say they do not know the identities of those responsible but claim they are from sub-Saharan Africa. Stolen vehicles, they say, are being sent south across the border to Chad, Sudan and Niger. [/restrict]
