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Hundreds of Moroccans protested Thursday after Algeria evicted farmers from a disputed border area where they had long been allowed to grow dates, an AFP journalist said.
The border between Algeria and Morocco, regional rivals, has been closed since 1994, but Algiers had allowed about thirty Moroccan farming households to use an area of agricultural land known to Moroccans as Arjal and to Algerians as the name of the oasis of Laaroda.
Relations between the two North African countries have deteriorated in recent months.
Algiers had given “Moroccan farmers exploiting these Algerian lands an agreed deadline to leave the area” and closed the border post at midnight Wednesday evening, according to the official Algerian press agency APS.
“Algeria and Morocco let us cultivate without a problem and now we don’t know who to turn to,” said Abdelmalik Boubekri, a 71-year-old farmer, adding that the date orchard was the livelihood of all his people. family.
Shops closed and hundreds of people marched through the border town of Figuig, many chanting: “Our lands are Moroccan, not Algerian!”
Moroccan officials had organized a meeting with residents to “examine possible solutions to mitigate the impact” of this decision, according to a government statement released by the Moroccan news site Media 24.
On Thursday, angry protesters hoping to reach the disputed area of farmland were arrested en route by Moroccan police.
Several young people accompanied the farmers, criticizing the lack of work in the desert region.
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