2023-09-03 20:32:00
The Algerian Ministry of Defense spoke of “shooting” by the coast guard, after warnings against young Moroccan and Franco-Moroccan holidaymakers.
By our correspondent in Algiers, Adlène Meddi The Algerian Coast Guard fired warning shots at Moroccan and Franco-Moroccan holidaymakers on jet skis when they entered Algerian waters. © ERIC LAFFORGUE / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP Published on 09/03/2023 at 8:32 p.m.
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Algeria reacted on Sunday evening to the incident in the border waters with Morocco which occurred on August 29. The incident caused the death of two Moroccan vacationers from France, including a Franco-Moroccan, who were lost on board their jet skis. They were reportedly killed Tuesday evening at sea in a border area, by shots attributed to Algerian coastguards, according to testimonies taken up by Moroccan media. On Friday, the Quai d’Orsay confirmed the death of a Frenchman and “the incarceration of another compatriot in Algeria in an incident involving several of our nationals”.
The public prosecutor’s office in Oujda (north-eastern Morocco), a city bordering Algeria, had “ordered the opening of an investigation on Wednesday on the basis of statements by a person who said he had been a victim with four other young people of a violent incident at sea,” a judicial source told the Moroccan agency MAP.
A remains not repatriated
These investigations were decided, according to Moroccan media “after the discovery of the body of Bilal Kissi on the beach of Saidia”, three kilometers from the Algerian border. This 29-year-old vacationer, according to the Le360 site, born and residing in France, left this beach with his older brother Mohamed, 33, also Franco-Moroccan, who was able to return to the seaside resort of Saidia and testify. Their cousin Abdelali Mechouar, a Moroccan national, as well as Smaïl Snabé, a Franco-Moroccan friend, took part in the excursion, each on his jet-ski.
READ ALSOVacationers killed in Algeria: the family will file a complaint in FranceThe holidaymakers were “five” in number and “would have gotten lost at sea during a leisure outing”, assured a judicial source to AFP. Bilal Kissi, a merchant father of two children aged two and two months, according to the Moroccan site Le360, was buried Thursday in Bni Drar, near Oujda. According to testimonies relayed by the media in Morocco, the body of another victim, Abdelali Mchiouer, is on the Algerian side. Abdelali Mchiouer, according to Moroccan media, holds a residence permit in France and worked as a merchant in a market in Seine-Saint-Denis.
Warning shots
This Sunday evening, the Algerian Ministry of Defense, on which the coastguards cited in the testimonies depend, gave its version of the facts. According to its press release, the ministry indicates that “during a security and control patrol in our territorial waters, a unit of the coast guard […] intercepted, on the evening of Tuesday August 29, 2023 at 7:47 p.m., three jet-skis having clandestinely crossed our territorial waters”.
The statement goes on to say that the patrol gave an “audible warning” and “repeatedly called to stop” the people who were on board the three jet skis. They “refused to comply” and “fleed by performing dangerous maneuvers”. “Given the increased activity of drug trafficking gangs and organized crime in this maritime border region, and in view of the obstinacy of the passengers of the said jet-skis, the coast guard personnel fired warning shots”, adds the Ministry of Defence.
A recovered corpse
Still according to this official source, “after several attempts, shots were fired, forcing one of the jet skis to stop, while the other two fled”. The press release also explains that, the next day, August 30, another coastguard patrol, at 5 p.m., recovered “an unidentified male corpse” and whose remains showed “a bullet impact from a firearm”.
“The corpse was then transferred to the morgue of the Marsa Ben M’hidi polyclinic [près de la frontière marocaine] “. The Ministry of Defense concludes its press release with an appeal to “various national media, social media users and citizens not to pay attention to the false information circulating aimed at harming the honorable image of the National People’s Army”. .
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