By Hadi Fornaji.
Tunis, 24 July 2017:
The acting interior minister in the Beida-based interim government has called on the head of its General Authority for Awqaf (religious endowments) and Islamic Affairs to instruct imams to preach against indiscriminate firing of weapons.
Hussein Ellabar told Awqaf chief Abdulmouli Al-Hassanouni that an awareness programme pointing out the dangers of indiscriminate firing into the air needed to be disseminated through mosques. People were being killed an injured as a result, he pointed out. It also caused panic particularly among the sick and the elderly as well as being selfish and resented, he added.
With the mass of weapons and ammunition held in Libya, shooting guns into the air not, just to warn off people but at weddings and other events, is an almost daily occurrenc, and has been since the 2011 revolutione. Sometimes, it is not just guns but rocket-propelled grenades as well.
Just three days ago, a 25-year-old man was seriously injured in Benghazi’s Salmani district as a result of what is thought to have been random firing. So too the same day was a 54-year-old woman when a shell landed at a social club in the city. Today, a 19-year-old young woman was hit in the eye by indiscriminate fire near Sabri.
