BEIRUT: Three of the Lebanese truck drivers who were kidnapped at the Nassib crossing on the Syrian-Jordanian border arrived in Lebanon Tuesday, while one remains in captivity, a truck owner said. “Three of the four trucks drivers that we couldn’t reach yesterday have now entered Lebanon,” Assem Alam, the associate of Seer al-Dinnieh Mayor Ahmad Alam, told The Daily Star Tuesday. “The fourth is still missing.”
The mayor owns at least eight of the trucks that had been stuck at the Syrian-Jordanian crossing since last Tuesday.
His assistant added that around 25 truckers were waiting at the Masnaa border crossing in east Lebanon for a permit to drive their trucks into the country.
The crossing was taken over by Syrian rebels last Wednesday, one day after it was shut from the Jordanian side over security concerns.
Economy Minister Alain Hakim told NBN TV in an interview Tuesday morning that the kidnappers still held five truck drivers of unknown nationalities at the Nassib crossing.
As for the Lebanese truckers, 14 were released and nine of them already entered Lebanon, he said, adding that 140 others were stuck on the Jordanian side of the border with Saudi Arabia.
His numbers contradicted those of a spokesman from the General Security, which is in charge of border control, who had told The Daily Star that a total of 16 truckers entered Lebanon on April 5 and 6.
He was not available for comment Tuesday.
The numbers mentioned by Hakim had been stated in a report by a local newspaper earlier in the day.
“Up until last night a total of 14 refrigerated truck drivers have been released,” the head of the Refrigerated Trucks Union Omar al-Ali told the local daily. “The fate of about five other truckers is still unknown.”
Ali said more than 120 truck drivers were still stranded at the Jordanian-Saudi border and could not return home due to the closure of the frontier. The number is 140, according to Hakim.
“It’s true that they are in a safe place but they cannot return to Lebanon due to the closure of the Jordanian border,” Ali said.
The truckers had addressed Lebanese authorities Sunday demanding to be transported with their trucks in a ship to Lebanon.
They said their Saudi permits were expiring and the road through Jordan was blocked by developments at the Nassib crossing.
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