Seventeen people, including a German woman and a Dutch woman, died in a serious accident in Tamanar (Haha region), on the road connecting Essaouira to Agadir.

According to concordant sources, the coach travelling from Tan Tan to Safi overturned on Monday, July 9, 2012, around 6 p.m. on the Tassaka bridge, a few kilometres from Tamanar.

The images of the tragedy as described to us by several witnesses are as dramatic as can be: deaths, dozens of injured, a woman who passed away on the way to the hospital, a young man who succumbed to his injuries a minute after his evacuation to the hospital, a pregnant woman and four children seriously injured, two foreign women dead at the scene, and a Tunisian man seriously injured.

According to concordant testimonies, including those of some survivors, a 28-year-old passenger, originally from Haha and wearing a light beard, had suddenly and violently attacked the driver, thus causing the coach to overturn on the Tasaka bend. The causes of this aggression remain unknown since the passenger, the driver, and his assistant all died in the accident.

"One of the women had several serious injuries; she was moaning along the road to the hospital centre in Essaouira. Upon arriving at Diabate, she had stopped moaning. We were unable to identify her," recounts an ambulance driver.

"We pulled out a 24-year-old young man; after two kilometres of road, he passed away," confides another ambulance attendant, who reported the existence of several injured people still trapped in the completely crushed coach.

At 11 p.m., the Civil Protection ambulances arrived at the Essaouira Provincial Hospital Centre (CHP) carrying the corpses of the victims. A few hours later, the arm of a dead man was brought in turn to the hospital. Families were there waiting for news of their loved ones: tears, grave faces, and a great mobilisation within the CHP, whose officials and medical staff spent a sleepless night.

During the morning of July 10, 2012, the toll of this accident was made official: 17 dead, including three women, and about thirty injured, including a young Tunisian who was to be transferred urgently to the Marrakech University Hospital Centre (CHU).