Bakry Abul Hassan, head of the fisheries division of sailors, said a sailing boat with 35 Egyptian sailors on board were arrested by Saudi authorities. They were shot by the border troops, which caused explosion of the fuel tank of the boat leading to fire a some parts of it.
In a statement, Abul Hassan warned sailors of approaching the regional waters of any country without permission.
Number of boats kept at Saudi Arabia reached three, he said. Number of detained sailors reached 100.
An Egyptian official quoted the Saudi side as saying that the Saudi authorities warned that one of the boats did not obey the warning shots fired by the Saudi border troops, which led to killing of one and injury of another. He indicated that cooperation steps have been taken to resolve the issue of the boats and facilitate transfer of the victim and the other sailors.
The Egyptian consulate in Jeddah called on sailing boats not to enter the regional waters of the kingdom, saying that number of violating boats reached 205 between 2012-2013, which require cooperation of authorities in question.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
