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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Soraya Aybar Laafou in Tétouan, Morocco

Drowned the day her visa came through: the tragedy of a Moroccan footballer trying to reach Ceuta

A smiling young woman on a football pitch in a red and white striped kit
Faten Omar Ben El Azizi, a 26-year-old football player in Morocco’s regional league, died with at least 141 others while trying to reach Ceuta. Photograph: Handout

Football was the life Faten Ben Omar El Azizi had wanted. She had long played in Morocco’s regional league for Moghreb Atlético Tetuán, whose striking kit replicates the colours of the famous Spanish club Atlético Madrid.

And in the cruellest of ironies, on the day that she drowned last month, one of nearly 150 people who died in the illegal mass crossing into the Spanish exclave of Ceuta, her mother was told that her daughter had just been granted a visa to go to Spain.

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