On Friday, France confirmed one of its residents had been killed in Algeria, a day after reports said two visitors were shot dead by coastguards when they wandered across the marine border with Morocco.
On Thursday, Morocco media reported that two French Moroccans had been shot after wandering across the border into the Algerian sea on jet skis, near the famous Moroccan beach resort of Saida.
Only one was killed without providing the possibilities, saying another of its residents was detained in an incident involving several of our citizens, the foreign ministry in Paris reported.
France did not release the identity of the individual it said had been shot dead.
The incident came as anticipations were heightened between Rabat and Algiers, stoked by a long-running conflict over the Western Sahara territory.
The border between the two nations has been shut since 1994, and Algeria split off diplomatic relations in August 2021, blaming Morocco of “hostile acts” – a determination Rabat called “totally unjustified.”
France’s foreign ministry said its “crisis aid center and our embassies in Morocco and Algeria are in immediate contact with our fellow residents’ families, to whom we are delivering every support, french ministry added.
News site Le360 named the duo Bilal Kissi and Abdelali Mechouer.
A third man also thought to be French-Moroccan, Smail Snabe, was captured by the Algerian Coast Guard and carried before prosecutors, Le360 reported.
Witness Mohamed Kissi, Bilal’s brother, told the Moroccan website Al Omk that the jet ski-riding group of three French Moroccans and one Moroccan “got missed but kept moving until we saw ourselves in Algeria.”
