Rabat: an MRE dies after a meal in a restaurant, her mother denounces

A case of food poisoning in a restaurant in Rabat in late June has led to the death of an English tourist. Her devastated mother, a Moroccan living in England, describes how the restaurant staff prevented her from leaving and demanded payment of the bill while her daughter was dying.

This will be Lily King’s last holiday. Having arrived on holiday in Morocco with her 56-year-old Moroccan mother Aicha in June to visit family and celebrate getting the best grades in her first year of economics at Exeter University, the 18-year-old will not be returning to England alive. Tragedy strikes the King family. On the last day of their holiday, 19 June, she and her mother went to dinner at the Maya et Lounge restaurant in Rabat, where they had eaten before. While things had gone well on their previous visit to the restaurant – which also doubles as a bar and nightclub – which claims on its website to offer “an exclusive but impeccable culinary journey”, the “finest cuisine” and boasts a “long history of luxury hospitality”, that was not the case on 19 June. Speaking in Arabic, Lily’s mother was “explicit” with restaurant staff about her daughter’s allergies, which included dairy, fish, shellfish, sesame and nuts, and “what she could and couldn’t eat,” she told Online mail Michael, 73, the MRE’s husband. “I explained to him (the waiter) in Arabic three times: ‘Be careful, she is very, very allergic,'” Aisha said. “Yeah, don’t worry, we are careful,” the waiter replied. She ordered a simple meal of grilled chicken and fries without oil for her daughter, but the waiter allegedly brought her a meal of chicken, vegetables with fries and a side of sauce.