Bodies from June 20th 1981 recovered

Authorities in Casablanca unearthed a mass grave holding the remains of up to 100

The dead were among some 1,000 people killed in anti-government riots in Casablanca on June 20, 1981, when riot police fired into a crowd protesting against food price rises, according to human rights groups.

"It is not accurate to say the bodies had been entombed in a mass grave. The bodies were reburied according to Muslim ritual because they had been initially buried in a disorganised manner," a senior government official said.

"They had been buried separately in individual graves," he said, while acknowledging the original burials had been done in secret.

"These bodies had been in a makeshift cemetery not known to the public and their reburial came to correct this situation," he added.

'YEARS OF LEAD'

At the time, the government put the death toll at 66. Human rights groups said the government buried the dead in at least seven mass graves scattered across the city of 5 million people, including the one unearthed at the fire station.

The discovery is part of an unprecedented truth-seeking process in Morocco after the reform-minded King Mohammed VI ordered the independent Equity and Reconciliation Commission last year to investigate human rights abuses.

The abuses over more than four decades up to 1999, during the rule of the late King Hassan II, were known as the "years of lead" when many dissidents and coup plotters were killed, tortured and abducted.

The commission formally ended its investigations last month and submitted to Mohammed VI a report whose results have not yet been made public.

Three nongovernmental human rights organizations and a group uniting families of the dead criticized the authorities for their treatment of the bodies in the mass grave.

"We consider the way the authorities handled the digging up of the mass grave and the removal of the remains will tamper with the evidence and damage the remains of the dead," they said in a statement.

"We demand the prosecution of those responsible for the crime of killing our loved sons and daughters, buried in that mass grave. We consider this a crime against humanity."

The Moroccan Human Rights Association and the Justice and Truth Forum voiced similar concerns and backed their demands and under the new king, there is every hope this will happen.

Tags: Morocco, Fès, Casablanca, news