Tunisia Alleges Air Raid By French

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28821, 16 February 1959, Page 11

Tunisia Alleges Air Raid By French

Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 9.30 p.m.) TUNIS, February 15. Tunisia last night alleged that three Algerian-based French fighter aircraft carried out a low-level strafing attack against a small Tunisian border village yesterday. A statement by the Tunisian Ministry of Information alleged that two Tunisian men were killed, eight others wounded and that two persons were missing. The Tunisian Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr Saddok Mokkadem), lodged a “very energetic protest” over the alleged border incident with the French Ambassador to Tunisia (Mr Georges Gorse).

According to the Tunisian Government, the attack was directed against a remote southern Tunisian village called Alep Batna. The village is about 10 miles inside the Tunisian border, about 200 miles south of the Mediterranean coast and about 140 due west of the southern Tunisian port of Gabes.

The alleged raid came as the climax of a week that has seen relations between France and Tunisia sink to the lowest level since the French bombing of the border town of Sidi Sakiet Youssef on February 8 last year, which caused the deaths of 76 Tunisian men, women and children. Earlier this week Tunisia alleged that Algerian-based French

troops shelled a border village near the Kasserine Pass, killing one and wounding several others. Later, the Tunisian Goverriment arrested 15 French citizens in Tunis on charges of operating an espionage ring. * One of the arrested men, a postal telegraph inspector, leapt to his death during questioning by Tunisian police.' This prompted France to lodge an “indignant protest” with the Tunisian Government.

According to the communique issued in Tunis last night three French fighter aircraft swept low over Alep Batna and opened fire on a group of Tunisians who had gathered to chase locusts from the fields.

The communique said that one of the fighter planes remained in the air and circled overhead while Tunisian authorities carried out an investigation in the village. The Tunisian Minister of Information (Mr Mohammed Masmoudi), who was Ambassador to France at the time of the Sakiet bombing, noted that the alleged strafing came scarcely 24 hours after President Bourguiba had proposed a talk with General de Gaulle as the best means of healing the wounds between their two countries.

“Is this the French reply to Bourguiba?” Masmoudi asked.