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 on Wednesday the opening of an investigation on the basis of statements by a person claiming to have been a victim with four other young people of a violent incident at sea,” a judicial source told Moroccan news agency MAP.
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.
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 statement, the ministry indicates that “during a security and control patrol in our territorial waters, a coastguard unit […] intercepted, on the evening of Tuesday, August 29, 2023 at 7:47 p.m. , three jet skis having smuggled across our territorial waters”.
The statement goes on to say that the patrol issued an “audible warning” and “repeatedly called to a halt” to those on board the three jet skis. They “refused to comply” and “fleed by performing dangerous maneuvers”. “Given the increased activity of drug 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.
Also 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 statement also explains that the following day, August 30, another coast guard patrol, at 5 p.m., recovered “an unidentified male corpse” whose remains showed “a bullet hole from a gun”.
“The corpse was then transferred to the morgue of the Marsa Ben M’hidi polyclinic [near the Moroccan border].” The Ministry of Defense concludes its statement with an appeal to “various national media, social media users and citizens not to pay attention to the false information circulating aimed at damaging the honorable image of the National People’s Army”. .
