Bedouin dead, another injured by police in Sinai

Security sources said a Bedouin was killed yesterday evening by police shots, while another was injured in a security chase that included exchange of fire. According to the sources, a security patrol in Kantara East (a city of Ismailia governorate) noticed two Bedouins on board of a big subsidized solar truck. The security men asked the driver to pull over, but he refused and started to shoot against the patrol, which forced the officers to shoot back at him leaving him dead and his companion injured. The sources added that the dead Bedouin called Mohamed A. S., the injured is his cousin Ahmed H. S., who was shot in the right shoulder and transferred to Kantara East Hospital while another managed to escape. The incident increases the tension between the police and the Bedouins in Sinai, as this is the second Bedouin dead by the police guns in the current week. This came after a driver was shot dead by an officer in a security chase in al-Arish, followed by his family cutting the road and breaking into al-Arish hospital in protest of the incident and demanding the prosecution of the officer. Israel’s withdrawal from Sinai in 1982 according to the peace accord signed between Cairo and Tel Aviv in 1979, under the patronage of the United States. Since then, Sinai suffers the ignorance of the authorities which gave way to the revival of crimes. Bedouins attack police stations, cut roads leading to towns and take hostages to express their anger about the mistreatment of the authorities and to pressure for the release of their detained family members. Disturbances are spread in North Sinai, which is the area with more weapons that suffer the ignorance of the central government since the fall of former President Mubarak regime last year in the people’s revolution. Mubarak’s government worked closely with Israel to stabilize the area under its control.