A Moroccan health official announced on Monday night to Agence France-Presse that an elderly French tourist was attacked with stones near Rabat by a man “showing signs of mental disorder.” She died of her injuries, while her husband, who was injured like her, is still in hospital.
Leila Darfoufi, director of the Moulay Youssef regional center in Rabat, said that the eighty-year-old tourist “died of a head trauma, while her husband is in stable condition,” reports a local Arabic daily.
The attack, whose motives were not immediately clear, took place less than 48 hours before the expected confrontation between Morocco and France in the semi-finals of the World Cup in Qatar.
According to Dr. Darfoufi, director of Moulay Youssef Hospital, to which the two victims of the attack were transferred, the two French tourists “are husband and wife. The woman born in 1940 sadly passed away. She arrived at the hospital dead. We were very disappointed that we could not save her.”
She added that her husband is in the 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 attacking the French tourists by throwing stones.