tecdec

At least 15 women died and five were wounded in a stampede during a food distribution operation on Sunday morning in rural Morocco, government officials said. The victims were crushed as hundreds of people, mostly women, gathered to collect baskets of food at the market of a small town, Sidi Boulaalam, according to news accounts. The town is about 40 miles from the coastal city of Essaouira. In the aftermath of the stampede, clothes and other personal items were left scattered across the ground. It is unclear what led to the stampede. The Moroccan Interior Ministry, which reported the death toll, said it had opened an investigation. The donor who organized the food distribution has not been publicly identified. At the market on Sunday, many who were injured were taken to hospitals in Essaouira and Marrakesh. A witness cited by local news reports said the donor had been distributing flour, cooking oil and sugar when the stampede broke out. Still, photos that emerged from t...