Alwaght- At least fifteen women were killed in a stampede in southwest Morocco as food aid was being distributed.
The incident happened in a market in Sidi Boulaalam, outside the Moroccan port town of Essaouira. The food packages were being handed out by a private charity from Casablanca and attracted large crowds.
Local reports say the victims were women and elderly people and that the death toll could rise as five others have been seriously injured.
Medics say that all of the fatalities were women aged over 40 who had traveled for miles to get to a remote village in drought-devastated Morocco.
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 Rif region.
As news of the tragedy spread, King Mohammed VI gave instructions that “all measures be taken to help the victims and their families,” according to the Associated Press. Mohammed will also pay the cost of hospitalizing the wounded and burying the dead.
The Moroccan government has been searching for answers to the country’s drought, which has decimated two harvests.
Last year, wheat and barley production in Morocco was at its lowest level in a decade, according to World Grain, an industry magazine. The shortage was due to “inadequate rainfall during the planting season and the shortage of rain during the critical months of February and March.”
Wheat is a staple in North Africa, and in Morocco, according to the magazine. The average Moroccan consumes more than 440 pounds of wheat every year, one of the highest per capita rates in the world. The country irrigates only about 10 percent of its land
