A Moroccan health official told Agence France-Presse Monday-Tuesday that an elderly French tourist, attacked with stones near Rabat by a man, died of her injuries while her husband, who was also injured, was still in hospital .
Leila Darfoufi, director of the Moulay Youssef regional center in Rabat, said the 80-year-old tourist “died of a head injury, while her husband is in stable condition”.
The attack, the reasons for which were not immediately clear, took place less than 48 hours before the expected match between Morocco and France in the semifinals of the World Cup in Qatar.
According to Dr Darfoufi, director of the Moulay Youssef hospital, where the two victims of the attack were hospitalised, the two French tourists “are husband and wife. We were very disappointed that we couldn’t save her.”
She added that her husband is in hospital and his condition is “stable”.
An official Moroccan source told AFP that the royal gendarmerie had arrested a person “showing signs of mental disorder” on the outskirts of Rabat after he attacked French tourists by throwing stones.
The source said that the gendarmerie of the town of Moulay Bousselham, north of the capital, arrested “a person who showed signs of mental disorder, because he subjected two foreign tourists, of French nationality, to physical assault”.
He added that the suspect “surprised foreign citizens, without reasonable cause, and subjected them to violence with the use of stones, which caused them injuries of varying severity”.
The source confirmed that the arrested person is the subject of a judicial investigation “to find out the reasons that led to committing these criminal acts”.
The French are at the forefront of foreign tourists visiting Morocco.
Last January, a 79-year-old French tourist was killed after being attacked with a knife in a market near the city of Agadir (south).
The anti-terrorism police investigated the perpetrator, before the court decided to place him in a psychiatric hospital, ruling out any terrorist motive behind the crime.
