21 Dec, 2018 @ 11:30
2 mins read

PURE EVIL: Backpackers beheaded and stabbed to death in Morocco before video shared online in ISIS inspired attack

TRAGIC: Louisa and Maren were both students who loved travelling
TRAGIC: Louisa and Maren were both students who loved travelling
TRAGIC: Louisa and Maren were both students who loved travelling

FOUR men have been arrested for allegedly hacking two Scandinavian backpackers to death in Morocco.

Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, 24, from Denmark, and Maren Ueland, 28, from Norway, were slaughtered while camping in the Atlas Mountains.

It comes after a video of one of the women being beheaded was uploaded online.

The attack has shocked the north African country, a popular holiday destination for expats and locals in southern Spain and one of the more liberal countries on the continent.

Their bodies were found on Monday morning.

The Atlas mountains are a popular hiking route in Morocco

The sickening footage, which was shared on social media, shows a blonde woman screaming while a man cuts her neck with what appears to be a sharp kitchen knife.

One of the women was decapitated and the other was found dead with a severe neck wound, suggesting they had attempted to decapitate her. 

French hikers stumbled upon the horrific scene, finding one of the women inside their tent and the other just outside.

“It was horrible. They were broken,” one of the French hikers said.

“We warned everyone we saw in Imlil not to go up there. I did not want more to see what we had seen…It was a big shock, we’re thinking about it all day. It makes you think about what’s important in life.”

VILE: ISIS believed to have inspired the shocking murders

Four suspects are believed to have had links to ISIS and had sworn allegiance to the terrorist group.

In the horrific video, a man can be heard saying in French: “This is for Syria, here are the heads of your Gods.”

The bodies were found in a remote mountainous region, 10 kilometers from the village of Imlil.

The two women were enjoying a four-week trip in Morocco and were staying with three others.

Reports say they were last seen with some local men who were guiding them, but that there was another group of men ‘not from the area’.

One hotelier said: “Three homeless men came from Marrakech and pitched a tent right next to the girls’ tent. The men were not from round here.”

Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen branded the deaths a ‘beastly crime’.

“We do not know the circumstances, but a lot suggests that the brutal killing was an act of terror, and there’s a video on social media,” he said.

The Norwegian Department of Foreign Affairs, however, said the killings were unlikely to be the work of more established terrorist groups, but that the group of men may have been inspired by ISIS.

The killers likely stalked the pair before attacking them while they slept on Monday, investigators say.

Morocco, a tourism hotspot, has been battling with Islamic extremism for years with thousands of Moroccans having joined ISIS since its inception.

Laurence Dollimore

Laurence Dollimore is a Spanish-speaking, NCTJ-trained journalist with almost a decade’s worth of experience.
The London native has a BA in International Relations from the University of Leeds and and an MA in the same subject from Queen Mary University London.
He earned his gold star diploma in multimedia journalism at the prestigious News Associates in London in 2016, before immediately joining the Olive Press at their offices on the Costa del Sol.
After a five-year stint, Laurence returned to the UK to work as a senior reporter at the Mail Online, where he remained for two years before coming back to the Olive Press as Digital Editor in 2023.
He continues to work for the biggest newspapers in the UK, who hire him to investigate and report on stories in Spain.
These include the Daily Mail, Telegraph, Mail Online, Mail on Sunday and The Sun and Sun Online.
He has broken world exclusives on everything from the Madeleine McCann case to the anti-tourism movement in Tenerife.

GOT A STORY? Contact newsdesk@theolivepress.es or call +34 951 273 575 Twitter: @olivepress

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