Two people were shot dead on Wednesday, October 1 at night by Gendarmes in Morocco, while trying to “assault” a brigade, the second day of violence out of a peaceful movement for a better education and health systems.
This is the most serious incident since the beginning of the protests conducted on Saturday by a group of young people baptized to Genz 212, whose initiators are unknown.
For the first time, the demonstrations were authorized. They gathered hundreds of protesters in Casablanca (West), Tangier or Tetouan (north), with the slogans “people want the fall of corruption” and “freedom, dignity and social justice”. The protesters in Casablanca also requested the “departure” of the head of the Aziz Akhannouch Government, found AFP journalists.
But for the second consecutive night, violence also hit the country.
An “attempt to theft of ammunition, materials and service weapons”
In Lqlia, near Agadir (South), the Gendarmes “were forced to use their service weapons, as part of the self -defense, to repel an attack and an assault by groups of individuals,” said local authorities cited by the map agency.
Two people died and others were injured, added this source.
Equipped with white weapons, the attackers had set fire to a vehicle and part of the building before assaulting the brigade in an “attempt to theft of ammunition, materials and service weapons,” he was added.
In Salé, a neighboring city of the Rabat capital, hooded people also burned two police cars and a banking agency without singing slogans, said an AFP journalist.
People also burned offices at the headquarters of the rural commune of Sidi Bibi, near Agadir in the south, according to local media.
Vandalism acts were also committed in small cities such as Kelâat M’gouna (South) that were not part of the localities of demonstrations designated by the Genz 212 collective, according to the same sources.
400 arrests
On Tuesday night, unauthorized demonstrations had already resulted in clashes with the police in cities such as Oujda (East) and Inzegane, in the suburbs of Agadir (South).
After this violence, which made almost 300 injured, mainly in the ranks of the police, more than 400 people were arrested, Rachid El Khalfi said, spokesman for the Ministry of Interior.
The latter said that more than 140 police vehicles and 20 individual cars had been burned and that protesters also assaulted administrations, banking agencies and companies, especially in Inzegane and Oujda.
In Rabat, the Prosecutor’s Office decided on Wednesday that a second group of 97 people, three of whom were put in detention, were going to be judged, said his lawyer Soud Brahma to the AFP, and added that the date of his trial has not yet been established.
A first group of 37 people, three of whom were arrested in detention, must be tried from October 7, according to Brahma.
The Genz 212 group appeared recently through calls to demonstrate on social networks as discord. He describes himself as a “space for discussion” on “issues that concern all citizens, such as health, education and the fight against corruption”, and claims to reject “violence” and act for “love for the homeland and the king” Mohammed VI.
In Morocco, social inequalities remain an important problem with strong regional disparities and a gap between the public and private sectors.
Source: BFM TV
