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| Scene of ‘personal’ shooting in Ouzai. Photo: The Daily Star |
A wave of mysterious shootings and killings have rocked Lebanon over the last week. These include the bodies of two men found in a trunk in Khalde, a fatal shooting outside an Ouzai “resort” (pictured above), a monk’s mutilated body discovered off a highway in Naameh and the gang-style rifle shooting of two Syrians at a Saida butcher shop.
Meanwhile in previous weeks, we have seen a fatal Bourj Barajneh shootout, a fatal Zahle shootout, a supposed love triangle shootout in Raouche and a man found strangled with plastic wire and hands bound in his apartment in Dbyaeh, according to news reports.
Almost all of these were very short news stories blamed on “personal disputes” between families. But how “personal” are these murders when they put the whole country on edge, eroding confidence in the state’s ability to protect its citizens?
Murder and shootings are not “personal issues” no matter who commits them. The public deserves to have these crimes throughly investigated both by the government and the press, which should not accept such vague explanations. A little bit of digging–even a few phone calls–may reveal that these crimes could be less isolated than they seem. Either way, the public has a right to know more, much more.
