The death of a 22-year-old Moroccan student boarding a boat carrying migrants to Spain sparked a wave of resentment-fuelled protest in Morocco.
The Marine Royale Marocaine opened fire Tuesday on a speedboat “go-fast” (a powerful motorboat) which “stood in a suspicious manner in Moroccan waters”, in the north of the country, and who had “refused to comply to warnings”, according to local authorities.
Affected by the shootings, Hayat, a law student at the faculty of Martil (north), succumbed to her injuries at the hospital. Three other passengers, aged between 20 and 30, were injured, one of them critically.
The boat is believed to have been carrying at least 20 migrants.
Of Spanish nationality, the pilot of the “go-fast” is unharmed and was arrested, according to the Moroccan authorities, who have announced the opening of an investigation.
“Citizens of Moroccan civilians are being killed in cold blood because they just want to leave this country of social disparities, poverty and repression”, has blasted Wednesday the section of Nador, the Moroccan Association of Human rights (AMDH).
“There is no evidence that the passengers of the boat represented a threat, which would have been the only legal justification for Morocco to shoot”, for its part, responded Thursday Sarah Leah Whitson, head of the Middle East and North Africa for Human Rights Watch (HRW).
“The authorities are committed to investigate this serious incident; they should do so immediately, publicly disclose their findings and bring those responsible to justice,” she added in a press release.
Hayat’s footage went viral and spurred anger among citizens who recognize that the young Moroccan’s only sin was attempting to escape poverty and misery in order to support his family.
“The fatal bullet is the bearer of a message, it kills more than a young girl, it kills the hope of a generation,” commented Mohammed Ennaji, writer and academic on his page Facebook.
The Moroccan media went to the meeting with her working mother and unemployed father, living very modestly in a popular area of Tetouan (north).
The case was made Thursday in several newspapers: some evoke the “great escape” of the Moroccan youth, the “war waged by the authorities” against the “go-fast”, or “exaggerations” of the social networks that give the impression that “the whole country aspires to immigration”.
Several alarming reports on the youth of Morocco, one of the most developed economies in the African continent, have been published in recent months.
The latter, made public by the economic and social Council (EESC), was concerned about the gap “staggering” between the 11 million Moroccan youth (15 to 34 years) of the rest of the population.
School dropout, unemployment, poverty and frustration expose young people to risks of delinquency, to the sirens of extremism and the temptation to flee, ahead of this report.
