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A pair of tourists riding jet skis off the coast of Morocco were shot dead by the Algerian coast guard when they got lost and accidentally strayed across a border on Tuesday, reports say.
“We got lost but we kept going until we found ourselves in Algeria,” Kissi said, according to the AFP news agency. “We knew we were in Algeria because a black Algerian dinghy came towards us,” Kissi said, and those in the boat then “fired at us.”
“Thank God I wasn’t hit, but they killed my brother and my friend,” he said. “They arrested my other friend.” He added that the group had “got lost and we were out of fuel,” and that he escaped the same fate as the others by being picked up by the Moroccan navy as he swam for his life.
The killings come amid declining relations between Algeria and Morocco. The North African countries have long disputed the status of the Western Sahara and the border between the nations has been closed since 1994. Two years ago, Algeria broke off diplomatic ties with Morocco altogether, accusing its neighbor of “hostile acts.” Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune told Al Jazeera in March that relations with Morocco had “practically reached the point of no return.”
