France confirmed on Friday the death of a French citizen and “the imprisonment of another compatriot in Algeria in an incident involving several of our nationals”, while Moroccan media claimed on Thursday that two French-Moroccan holidaymakers had been killed by Algerian coastguards.
The French Foreign Ministry, for its part, referred to the death of a single national, but did not specify the circumstances of his death.
“The crisis and support center of the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs and our embassies in Morocco and Algeria are in close contact with the families of our fellow citizens, to whom we offer our full support,” it said in a statement.
“We are in contact with the Moroccan and Algerian authorities. The public prosecutor’s office has been notified”, a spokeswoman for the ministry added.
Moroccan media, quoting a witness to the tragedy, had reported on Thursday evening that two French-Moroccan holidaymakers had been killed by Algerian coastguards when they strayed on jet-skis into an Algerian maritime zone on the border with Morocco.
Bilal Kissi and Abdelali Mechouer were killed on Tuesday evening near the Moroccan coastal town of Saïdia (north-east of the country).
A third man, Smaïl Snabé, also French-Moroccan, was arrested by the Algerian coastguard and brought before an Algerian prosecutor on Wednesday, according to sources.
The four young men — three Franco-Moroccans and one Moroccan — were each on a jet-ski, according to one witness.
“We got lost but we kept going until we found ourselves in Algeria. We knew we were in Algeria because a black Algerian zodiac came towards us, it started zigzagging as if they wanted to run us over,” Mohamed Kissi, Bilal’s older brother.
He said he was picked up by the Moroccan navy, who took him back to Saïdia marina.
“They (the occupants of the zodiac) fired at us. Thank God I wasn’t hit, but they killed my brother and my friend. They arrested my other friend,” he also testified.
“We got lost and ran out of petrol”, he explained.
