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A wedding ceremony saved all the residents of a Moroccan village from the devastating earthquake that occurred last Friday and destroyed their homes built of stone and mud brick, while they were enjoying Berber folk music in an outdoor courtyard.
The wedding of Habiba Jadeer (22 years old) and apple farmer Muhammad Boudad (30 years old) was scheduled to take place in his village of Katou (كطو ) on Saturday, and the bride’s family held the traditional wedding ceremony a day before, in accordance with customs and traditions.
On Tuesday, as he stood next to his wife, while they were still wearing their wedding clothes, about four days after the earthquake that buried their belongings under the rubble, Boudad said that the earthquake made him afraid for his wife while he was waiting for her in his village.
He added, "We wanted to celebrate. Then the earthquake happened. I didn't know whether to worry about her village or my village."
Boudad was holding his wife's hand as he spoke. When asked about how they met, he smiled shyly and said only that “fate brought them together.” He added that the earthquake had left Ajdir so severely shocked that she no longer wanted to talk to strangers.
For their part, residents said that the poor village of Ajdir, Igil Ntilgomt, was reduced to rubble, and many of its residents were now homeless, but unlike other parts of the Adassil region, which is close to the epicenter of the earthquake, there were no deaths or serious injuries.
The earthquake was the deadliest in Morocco since 1960, after it killed more than 2,900 people, most of them in remote population centers in the High Atlas Mountains south of Marrakesh.
Only one person in Ighil Ntilgoumt, eight-year-old Ahmed Ait Ali Obla, was injured in the earthquake when a rock fell on his head and severely injured him.
The horrific fate that the people of Iguil Ntilgoumt escaped was clearly visible a few kilometers down the winding mountain road to Marrakesh, where the village of Tikkhet was almost completely destroyed.
Not a single house remained standing, and about 68 people died out of the village's 400 inhabitants.
But although the residents of Ighil Ntilgomt survived, they are still in desperate need of help and some can be seen walking down the mountainside to ask the authorities for help.
All the survivors in Katou are sharing their meager supplies. "The village is a big family. We share everything we get," Muhammad Ajdir said.
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