15 dead in food aid stampede in Morocco

RABAT - Fifteen people were killed and five more injured when a stampede  broke out in the southwestern Moroccan town of Sidi Boulaalam on Sunday  as food aid was being distributed in a market, the Interior Ministry  said.

King Mohammed  ordered that the victims' families be given any assistance they needed,  the ministry said in a statement, adding that a criminal investigation  had been opened.

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No more details were immediately available.

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 northerly Rif  region.

The Rif saw numerous protests after a fishmonger was  accidentally crushed to death in a garbage truck in October 2016 after a  confrontation with police, and he became a symbol of the effects of  corruption and official abuse.

In July, the king pardoned dozens  of people arrested in the protests and accused local officials of  stoking public anger by being too slow to implement development  projects.