According to media reports, the group of four men had gone for a ride from a holiday destination in Morocco. According to the survivor, the group drifted into the Algerian sea area.
Two people have died in an incident near the sea border between Algeria and Morocco, Moroccan media reported.
A group of four men from Saidia, a popular beach resort in Morocco, were on a jet ski ride when, according to media reports, they got lost at sea and crossed the Algerian border.
After being interviewed by the Moroccan media back in Morocco Mohamed Kissin according to Algerian border guards fired at them. Two of the men died and one was arrested by the border guards.
According to his own story, Kissi managed to escape from the place by swimming and got back to Saidia with the help of the Moroccan navy.
Kissi, who managed to escape, tells the Moroccan online publication al-Omk that one of the dead was his brother Bilal.
“We realized we were in Algeria”
Mohamed Kissi has told the Moroccan online publication 360.ma that it was getting dark and the jet skis were drifting in the sea because they were running out of fuel.
– We realized we were in Algeria, he describes.
According to Kiss, an Algerian speedboat pulled up to the scene, the people on it first exchanged a few words with his brother and then shot at the men.
Kissi says that his friend who got arrested Smail Snabe wounded by bullets.
According to Moroccan authorities, the body of the second man who was killed later washed up on the beach in Saidia.
According to the Moroccan media, it was the body of Bilal Kiss. The AFP news agency says that it has seen pictures of his funeral held in Morocco on Thursday.
The other deceased, Kissie’s cousin Abdelali Mechouar the body is said to be in the possession of Algerian authorities.
Morocco and Algeria are frozen
The Moroccan authorities have announced that they have started an investigation into the incident. The Algerian authorities have not commented on the publicly available information about the incident.
There were apparently three French-Moroccan dual citizens and one Moroccan citizen in the group riding jet skis.
The French Foreign Ministry has confirmed that at least one of the dead and one of the arrested are French citizens. According to the ministry, France is in contact with Morocco and Algeria because of what happened.
Relations between Morocco and Algeria are hostile, and diplomatic relations between the two countries were severed in 2021. The border between the two countries has been closed since 1994.
The background of the countries’ bad relations is, among other things, the conflict over the status of the Western Sahara region.
Sources: AFP, AP