Morocco Boosts Highway Safety with Fences and Cameras to Combat Stone-Throwing Attacks

In response to an oral question, the minister stated that 74 bridges are currently undergoing work to install fences and once and for all put an end to stone throwing on the highways.

There is also the question of installing surveillance cameras on the notorious dangerous sections, but the minister did not elaborate on the number of cameras that will be installed or the timing of their implementation.

It should be noted that in recent years, several victims have been reported on Moroccan highways, including a family that was decimated on the Marrakech highway and whose perpetrators were sentenced to death for throwing stones from a bridge.

These attacks also claimed a famous victim, former Interior Minister Mohand Laenser, who was the target of a stone throwing incident while returning from Tangier. His vehicle was damaged, his driver and he were injured and taken to the hospital.

These facts led to Autoroutes du Maroc being convicted by the courts before the conviction was overturned on appeal. The court of first instance had indeed ordered the company to pay the sum of 150,000 dirhams to a woman injured by stone throwing, a judgment overturned on appeal by the court of appeal which considered that ADM is not responsible for acts of vandalism on its network "like what happens in public transport". The role of the company, according to the courts, is "to build infrastructure to international standards and acts of vandalism, of which it is also a victim, cannot therefore be attributed to it."