Description
The conditions of poverty and desolation in the shantytowns in Morocco are often extreme. This has created in some neighbourhoods a hotbed for terrorism. Moroccan society now has to confront the extremists within. The slums of Thomas District in Casablanca are a place of grinding poverty. There’s no running water and the Amani brothers have to make several trips a day to a water fountain. They’ve now got electricity but a year ago they had to steal it. Now they’re worried that it will be cut off because they can’t pay. Ten people live in their shack but the only person with work is the mother, who cards wool and weaves jellabas. The conditions of extreme poverty and desolation have created in the slums a breeding ground for extremism. May 16th, 2003 is a date painfully inscribed in the memory of all Moroccans. Five blasts came within thirty minutes of each other. Forty-five people died that night, including twelve suicide bombers. It was the worst terrorist atrocity in Morocco’s history. Nine of the fourteen terrorists lived in Thomas District.