I was in the Boukhalef neighbourhood with some of my friends, when suddenly we saw some black people running in our direction and shouting, ‘Run, Arabs are coming!’. Further on, we could see some people wearing djellabas, some had covered their faces. They were throwing rocks, and they had machetes and knives. I tried to run away, but I was hit in the head by a rock and passed out. I woke up in the hospital. I have a large laceration on my head and I was also slashed on my back. 

I fled Ivory Coast four years ago, and I’ve been living in Tangiers for the last three months. Some friends had suggested I come live with them in Boukhalef. I didn’t have many options: housing was either too expensive, or the landlords didn’t want black tenants. 

Yesterday, my friends called to let me know that the attackers had broken into our flat and destroyed everything. I didn’t have much: only some clothes, some photos and a small sum of money I earned by doing some masonry jobs here and there. Everything went up in smoke. I’m afraid of going back because I know it’ll happen again, and that next time, I won’t survive.

I was told I had to leave because I was black. I mean, I have a job, I’m not undocumented. But when things heat up, that fact doesn’t make any difference. It’s basically mob justice: the attackers accuse blacks of being squatters, alcoholics, and the root of the crime problems in the neighbourhood [Editor’s note: RFI has discussed the possibility that real estate promoters are organising raids to cause migrant squatters to flee]. They say the authorities don’t take the problem seriously enough so they have decided to chase them out themselves. They conflate the labels “black”, “undocumented”, and “crime” all together, even though there are many properly documented residents in Boukhalef who do pay rent.

These are organised groups with a leader that gives the orders. They mostly go out on Friday, after the evening prayer, and they aim for their victims’ heads, which leads me to believe that they’re trying to kill them. They sing racist chants in Arabic, such as “We don’t want to see these monkeys here anymore” or “This is our holy war!”. 

The worst part is that all of this unfolds in full view of the police, who don’t intervene. On Friday, the Senegalese man was killed just a few metres away from the Boukhalef police station. Victims whose apartments were destroyed, or who were injured, had to wait hours before being able to make a complaint with the police. Everything is set up to dissuade black Africans from staying here.