A 16-year-old Lebanese boy was shot and fatally wounded after gunmen opened fire on a fishing boat on the maritime border with Syria on Saturday, his father and a local official told Agence France Presse.
"My wife crossed the border into Syria and has seen his body in the morgue of Bassel Assad hospital" in the coastal city of Tartus, said Ahmad Hamad of his son Maher.
President Michel Suleiman condemned the kidnapping of three Lebanese fishermen after a Syrian fishing boat approached their vessel, opened fire at it, and then took it into Syrian territory.
Suleiman followed up with Prime Minister Najib Miqati and Security Forces leaders, demanding the Syrian authorities to release them immediately.
His stressed the need that the sovereignty of both countries be respected, urging both Lebanon and Syria to reinforce coordination in order to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.
For his part, Miqati condemned the attack on Lebanese fishermen saying that the Lebanese-Syrian coordination committee should swiftly resolve the incident and bring back the kidnapped men.
According to the National News Agency the fishermen will be released on Saturday night as a result of the intensive contacts held between Lebanese and Syrian authorities.
Residents of the border town of al-Arida, where the fishermen come from, consequently blocked the international road leading to Syria by burning tyres in protest over the kidnapping.
MTV said that all border-crossings in northern Lebanon leading to Syria have been closed.
A local official, Ali Assad Khaled, mayor of the town of al-Arida, said brothers Fadi and Khaled Hamad and Maher were seized from their boat off the coast of northern Lebanon.
"Gunmen on another boat opened fire on the three Lebanese before seizing them and taking them off to Syria," he told AFP, adding that the incident was witnessed by other fishermen who insisted it took place in Lebanese waters.
Tensions have been high in recent months along the Lebanese-Syrian border over anti-regime protests taking place in Syria.
The Syrian army had repeatedly infiltrated Lebanese border territories in search of dissidents.
On December 2, 2011, dozens of terrified families fled their homes in Wadi Khaled after shooting from the Syrian side of the border wounded two men and a woman.
In recent months, thousands of people have fled into Lebanon from border districts of Syria as troops have resorted to mounting violence to crush anti-regime protests raging in the neighboring country since March.
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