Coast guard shot dead two tourists after they accidentally crossed from Morocco into Algerian waters

• A group of French-Moroccan tourists accidentally crossed into Algerian waters.
• The Algerian coast guard shot at them, killing two people, according to reports.

Two tourists vacationing in Morocco were shot dead on Tuesday by the Algerian coast guard after they accidentally went into Algerian waters while on watercraft, according to reports.

The two men, 29-year-old Bilal Kissi and 40-year-old Abdelali Merchouer, were part of a group of four French-Moroccan dual nationals who had set off from the Moroccan beach resort of Saidia, according to the Moroccan news outlet le360.

A third member of the group, Smail Snabe, was arrested by the coast guard, Agence France-Presse reported. He appeared before a prosecutor on Wednesday, BBC News said.

The fourth member of the group, Mohammed Kissi, was the only one to make it back to Morocco.

Mohammed Kissi, whose brother Bilal died, told the Moroccan news outlet le360 that the group had drifted into Algerian waters, crossing the maritime border, after getting lost and running out of fuel.

"We knew we were in Algeria because a black Algerian dinghy came towards us," he said, according to AFP.

Algeria and Morocco have a long history of tension since their independence, which has more recently revolved around a dispute about the territory of the Western Sahara. In 2021, Algeria unilaterally severed diplomatic ties with Morocco.

Kissi said his brother, Bilal, who lived in France but was of Moroccan origin, tried to explain the situation to the Algerian coast guard before they started to shoot at the group, le360 reported.

"They knew well that we were unarmed," he told le360. "My little brother chatted with them and yet they still fired."

According to Al Omk, a Moroccan news website, the Moroccan coast guard recovered the body of a Moroccan man with five bullet wounds.

"Thank God I wasn't hit but they killed my brother and my friend," Kissi said, per AFP.

Kissi told le360 that he swam in the direction of Morocco before finding a patrol of the Royal Moroccan Gendarmerie, who escorted him back to land.

Actor Abelkarim Kissi, a cousin of the two brothers, told le360: "They killed Bilal Kissi, my little cousin, his only fault was having crossed Algerian territorial waters, he was on vacation with his friends."