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Fifteen dead in Morocco after stampede over food

The town of Sidi Boulaalam is located around 150km west of Marrakesh (Pic: Google Maps)
The town of Sidi Boulaalam is located around 150km west of Marrakesh (Pic: Google Maps)

Fifteen people have died and five more have been injured after a stampede broke out in the southwestern Moroccan town of Sidi Boulaalam, as food aid was being distributed in a market.

King Mohammed ordered that the victims' families be given any assistance they needed, the interior ministry said in a statement, adding that a criminal investigation had been opened.

No more details were immediately available.

Last month, the king dismissed the ministers of education, planning and housing, and health after an economic agency found "imbalances" in implementing a development plan to fight poverty in the northerly Rif region.

The region saw numerous protests after a fishmonger was accidentally crushed to death in a garbage truck in October 2016 after a confrontation with police, and he became a symbol of the effects of corruption and official abuse.

In July, the king pardoned dozens of people arrested in the protests and accused local officials of stoking public anger by being too slow to implement development projects.