Thousands of Moroccans abandon their citizenship and flee to Algeria

28 April, 2011

Thousands of people in the Moroccan region of "M'hamid El Ghozlane", located on the border strip near the province of Bechar, began to travel in groups to Algeria, leaving their Moroccan citizenship before being surrounded by the royal army and gendarme a few meters from the Algerian border.

According to information in our possession, these residents had already appealed to the government and the king for their social and political demands are taken into consideration, such as corruption, social justice and regional balance in development operations. A group of activists of human rights and former politicians have joined them in M'hamid El Ghozlane to support them.

Pictures and videos, of which Ennahar detains copies, show hundreds of families consisting of elderly women, youth and children, who had traveled the night of the day before in the region of M’hamid el Ghozlane, in the Zakoura region near the province of Bechar, waving banners and chanting slogans expressing their abandonment of their Moroccan citizenship and desire to go into exile in Algeria.

According to the latest reports from the region, Moroccan military vehicles and police surrounded Laribia area where these people were grouped in order to prevent them from joining the Algerian territory.

A great tension is prevailing in the border area between Algeria and Morocco.

The movement of February 20, instigator of the protests which call for reforms and a change of regime in Morocco has expressed its solidarity with the people of M’hamid El Ghozlane. Note that the "Caravan of Travelers" is some tens of meters of the Algerian territory.

Ennahar / Ismail Fellah

Source: Ennahar.
Link: http://www.ennaharonline.com/en/international/6394.html.