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Tunisian army fires tear gas at Libya border

24 May 2011 21:16 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA.Tunisian troops fired tear gas and warning shots Tuesday around a camp on the border with Libya to disperse fighting among refugees and local residents, a witness said, APA reports quoting news.yahoo.com website.

The U.N. refugee agency moved out its staff because of the unrest, said spokeswoman Sybella Wilkes in Geneva and spokesman Firas Kayal in Tunisia.

Later, an angry crowd of about 100 Tunisians fighting with the refugees at the Choucha refugee camp in Zarzis used iron bars and clubs to attack a car carrying journalists covering the unrest.

Ahmed Bahadou, a freelance video journalist on assignment for The Associated Press, said the attackers tried to pull him and the Tunisian driver out of the vehicle.

The car, which also was carrying an American and a French journalist, sped away, but not before equipment such as a satellite telephone was stolen, Bahadou said in an interview.