The kidnapping of two Moroccans in Iraq on October 20 a year ago brings back vivid and painful memories of the incident. All year the Moroccan government has been seeking the release of the two employees of the Moroccan embassy in Baghdad.
At the time of the kidnapping of Abdelkrim Mouhafidi and Abderrahim Boualam, who have lived in Iraq for twenty years, a Moroccan delegation of high level was immediately dispatched to Jordan.
Moroccan authorities have been working since that fateful day for the release of two nationals abducted at the time when going back to Iraq from Jordan, where they travelled to get their monthly salaries.
After it’s arrival in Amman, the Moroccan delegation had met many official and unofficial contacts with various political, religious, security and media organisations and people having links with the “Salafists Jihadists” movement in the Middle East.
Morocco still continues its investigation and various contacts in spite of the death announcement made by “Al Qaida” in Iraq and the absence of information concerning the two hostages.
Boualam was recruited by the embassy as a driver in 2002, while Mouhafidi has been in Iraq since 1982 and employed in the embassy since 1993 as a maintenance man.
On November 6, 2005, King Mohammed VI strongly condemned the kidnapping of the two Moroccans and described the abduction as "hideous crime." "I must strongly condemn the despicable kidnapping, by terrorist gangs in Iraq…”
The kidnapping was also condemned by Great Britain, France, the Iraq Sunni Council, the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), the Arab league, the Egyptian Islamist movement “Moslem Brotherhood,” the Moroccan Higher Council of Ulema (religious authority), in addition to Moroccan political parties, trade unions and civil society.
Tags: Morocco Fes, Maghreb news
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