2023-09-01 18:45:13
At least one Franco-Moroccan vacationer was killed on Tuesday, August 29, off the Algerian-Moroccan coast while he was Jet-Skiing with three of his friends. His death was confirmed on Friday by the Quai d’Orsay, which says another person, also of French nationality, is currently incarcerated in Algeria. According to the testimony of one of the four young people, the only one to have returned, they were allegedly attacked by the Algerian coastguards when they got lost in Algerian territorial waters. The fourth holidaymaker is presumed dead, but his body has not been found.
Told by the Moroccan press, the story begins when the Bilal brothers and Mohamed Qissi decide to spend the day at sea on a Jet-Ski with two friends in the waters of Saïdia, a town bordering Algeria located in the northeast from Morocco. According to the testimony of Mohamed Qissi, the only survivor, they were lost at sea on Tuesday at nightfall. They then found themselves in Algerian waters.
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“We knew we were in Algeria because a black Algerian zodiac came towards us, it started to zigzag as if it wanted to knock us down”Mohamed Qissi told the Moroccan media Al-Omk. They were Algerian coastguards. “They shot at us. Thank God I wasn’t hit, but my brother and my friend, they killed them. They arrested my other friend”, he added. Mohamed Qissi claims that the coast guards had identified them as civilians: “They saw that we were unarmed, my little brother exchanged with them and yet they fired”he confided.
Mohamed Qissi says he managed to escape on board his Jet-Ski, before the machine ran out of fuel. He then had to tow it by swimming. This is where the Moroccan gendarmerie found him after being alerted by the families of the four missing holidaymakers.
“Five bullets in his body”
Several videos are circulating on social networks showing the body of one of the young men floating near his Jet-Ski. According to Mohamed Qissi, as well as the testimonies of his family broadcast on social networks, it is his little brother Bilal. “They killed Bilal Qissi, my cousin, his only fault was to have crossed Algerian territorial waters, he was on vacation with his friends”writes actor Abdelkrim Qissi on his Facebook account. “The Algerian security forces have found nothing else than to rush on these young innocents and open fire without warning or moderation. We found at least five bullets in his body., he continues. The 29-year-old Franco-Moroccan was buried Thursday in Bni Drar, in eastern Morocco. The body of the fourth vacationer had still not been found on Friday.
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