Two jet ski tourists vacationing in Morocco are shot dead by the Algerian Coast Guard after straying into their waters
- Victims are Bilal Kissi and Abdelali Merchouer, both French-Moroccan nationals
- A third man was arrested by the Algerian coast guard and appeared before the prosecutor on Wednesday, according to reports
A pair of jet ski tourists vacationing in Morocco were shot dead by the Algerian coastguard on Thursday after crossing the maritime border.
Bilal Kissi and Abdelali Merchouer, both French-Moroccan dual nationals, came under fire after they took a wrong turn at the resort town of Saidia on Morocco’s northeastern tip, news website Le360 said, citing a witness.
A third man, Smail Snabe, also French-Moroccan, was arrested by the Algerian Coast Guard and appeared before a prosecutor on Wednesday, Le360 reported.
There were four men in the group on Tuesday, all riding jet skis in the Mediterranean Sea, Moroccan media reported Thursday.
“We got lost, but we kept going until we ended up in Algeria,” Mohamed Kissi, the brother of the young man who died, told Moroccan website Al Omk.
Two vacationers jet skiing in Morocco were shot dead by the Algerian coastguard as they crossed the maritime border between two Mediterranean countries, Moroccan media reported Thursday (archive photo)
“We knew we were in Algeria because a black Algerian dinghy came toward us” and those on board “fired at us,” he said.
“Thank God I wasn’t hit, but they killed my brother and my friend. They arrested my other friend,” he added.
“Five bullets hit my brother and my friend. My other friend was hit by a bullet,” Kissi said.
“We got lost and we ran out of fuel,” he said, adding that he was picked up by the Moroccan navy who took him back to Saidia’s marina.
Kissi’s cousin, actor Abdelkarim Kissi, has called on authorities in Morocco to take the case to international courts.
“They killed Bilal Kissi, my little nephew,” he wrote on social media. “His only mistake was crossing Algerian territorial waters, he was on vacation with his friends.”
The incident comes against the backdrop of heightened tensions between Algeria and Morocco, exacerbated by their antagonism over the disputed territory of Western Sahara.
The 2,000-kilometer border between the North African countries has been closed since 1994, and Algiers cut ties with Rabat in 2021 after accusing its neighbor of “hostile acts,” a charge Morocco called “completely unjustified.”
When asked about the reported shooting of the jet skiers on Thursday, Moroccan government spokesman Mustapha Baitas declined to comment, saying only that it was “a matter for the judiciary.”
There was no immediate comment from the Algerian side.