About Debdou
Debdou is a Moroccan town in the Taourirt province, in the Oriental region.
It has a total population of 4,540 inhabitants (2004).
Forged during the Marinid dynasty, Debdou is a village topped by a mud-brick Kasbah, which was primarily intended to defend the territory. Inhabited for over 2,000 years by a Sephardic Jewish community that, having been expelled from Spain, found a welcoming land there. This small community succeeded in making Debdou an active trading zone with the Spanish enclave of Melilla and Algeria, but the Six-Day War in the late sixties led the Israelites of the region to migrate to Casablanca or abroad. The mellah and its two cemeteries, traces of this life, are today a place of pilgrimage.
