BEIRUT: A teenager was killed and three other people were wounded when a grenade exploded outside a scrap-metal yard in the northern Palestinian refugee camp of Beddawi, the state-run National News Agency reported Thursday.
“13-year-old Mohammad Ashkar died in hospital of injuries sustained when a hand grenade exploded outside a scrap metal yard in the Beddawi camp,” 5 kilometers north of the port city of Tripoli, the Palestinian source told AFP.
“We believe the owner of the yard was sifting through his metal, found the grenade and tossed it outside where the children were standing,” the source added.
Palestinian security forces arrested the owner and were holding him for questioning, the source told AFP.
By longstanding convention, the Lebanese Army does not enter the country’s 12 camps, leaving security inside in the hands of Palestinians.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees estimates Lebanon today houses 400,000 Palestinians, but Lebanese officials estimate a figure of 300,000.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees estimates Lebanon today houses 400,000 Palestinians, but Lebanese officials estimate a figure of 300,000.
The majority of the refugees live in the overpopulated camps, which are armed to the teeth and which international organizations warn provide fertile recruiting grounds for Islamist extremists.
In 2007, the north Lebanon Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared was reduced to rubble and its residents were forced to flee during clashes between the Lebanese Army and the Al-Qaeda-inspired Fatah al-Islam militant group.
UN officials are hoping that the first batch of refugees will return to their homes in the camp starting early 2011. –The Daily Star,withAFP
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