Tears and hopes.

Those of a bereaved city which hopes that its inhabitants do not tear themselves apart after the murderous attack which struck it.

A few kilometers from the Moroccan coast, Algeciras the Andalusian could until then highlight the peaceful coexistence between its communities.

“We have always been good here.

We have seen this kind of thing elsewhere, but in Algeciras it is the first time, ”laments Rosa Amado, a 73-year-old retiree, who came to pay homage to Diego Valencia, the sexton killed in the attack, whom she saw every Sunday at the Nuestra Señora de La Palma church.



Reflection

Under a beautiful winter sun, hundreds of people came, like her, to gather on Thursday in the square in front of this church to pay homage to the sexton and to express their rejection of an act that they would never have thought to see in their city.

The priest of another church, located a few hundred meters away, was seriously injured in this machete attack perpetrated by a 25-year-old Moroccan, but he is now out of danger.

"At times like that, you think you're in a movie," because "when it happens to you, you don't believe it," Juan José Marina, priest of Nuestra Señora de La Palma, told AFP. was not in Algeciras at the time of the attack.

He now hopes that this attack, which has led to the opening of an investigation for terrorism, will not jeopardize the understanding that reigns between religious communities.

“Islam is peace”

"I try by all means to ensure that it is not used to bring out the divisions which are frequent (elsewhere), because here, there has never been any", he insists in front of the church, whose doors are closed.

The alleged perpetrator of the attack “called on the name of God for evil”, he denounces.

Many residents of the Muslim faith also came to pay homage to the sexton killed.

Among them, Saïda Laroussi, who has been living in Algeciras for almost thirty years, a city known for its many ferries leaving for Morocco, and who fears that Muslims will be stigmatized after this attack.

“This young man should not kill anyone, because Islam is peace.

We are here to tell the inhabitants that we are with them, that we are against it,” insists this 50-year-old Arabic teacher with hair covered in a beige veil.

" Shame "

A 67-year-old housewife, Carmen undermines the image of good relations and prefers not to give her surname when she denounces the lack of integration of Muslim families in her neighborhood.

“We are all in shock, but we saw it coming,” she says.

A speech against which wants to fight Hicham Ayoubi, who came to express his "shame" of an attack committed by a young man born in Morocco like him.

"We are very afraid that this will have an impact on our integration into the city, because we feel Spanish, we feel from Algeciras and we don't want this to happen again", assures this 41-year-old truck driver, arrived from Tangier twenty-two years ago.

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