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By Sami Zaptia.
London, 17 September 2020:
Many trucks, loaded with Tunisian agricultural products destined for the Libyan market, continue to be stranded at the border area of Ben Guerdane and have been unable to enter the Libyan market, Tunisian news outlet Rayaljadid.com reports.
The outlet reported Ibrahim Trabelsi, a member of the Executive Office of the Tunisian Union for Agriculture and Fisheries in charge of Maghreb Trade (UTAP) saying Tunisian traders prevented these trucks from crossing the border towards Libya and blocked the road in front of them, a situation that has been going on for about six days.
The goods and agricultural products inside the trucks face the risk of rotting and being discarded, while distributors and farmers, the owners of these trucks, are at risk of losing the Libyan market, according Trabelsi. He added that the Tunisian Farmers’ Union had worked hard to convince our Libyans to resume trade between the two countries, for agricultural products, as a first stage.
The blockade of Libya-bound trucks laden with goods and agricultural products are Tunisian merchants, citizens and civil society organizations, supporting them, under the pretext of wanting the youth and merchants of Ben Guerdane to be able to re-enter the Libyan market, to resume their business. They claim, with some justification, that conducting trade (and smuggling) is their only and basic source of livelihood, in the absence of employment opportunities in southern Tunisia.
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