Yet upon reaching Algeria's Tizi Ouzou province, Kabylie region, the artist was about to have his own life cut tragically short.
On 11 August, graphic footage began circulating purportedly showing Mr Ben Ismail being attacked. He was falsely suspected of having started fires, and locals tortured and burned him before taking his body to the village square.
The videos immediately caused national outrage.
The artist's brother later urged social media users to delete the footage of the attack. His mother, he said, still did not know how her son had died.
Mr Ben Ismail's father said he was "devastated". "My son left to help his brothers from Kabylie, a region he loves. They burned him alive," he said.
According to some local media reports, paranoia and rumours spread throughout parts of Tizi Ouzou, with some residents becoming suspicious of people driving cars with licence plates from other provinces.
This panic and paranoia is alleged to have been stoked by accusations of arson.
The evening before Mr Ben Ismail's death, Prime Minister Aymen Benabderrahmane said the fires were the result of a "criminal act".
In a televised address, he added: "Preliminary investigations in Tizi Ouzou have proven that the starting points of these fires were carefully chosen to cause the largest possible losses."
On the same day, Interior Minister Kamel Beldjoud visited Tizi Ouzou, telling reporters the fires had been caused by "criminals filled with hatred against our country".
This week, Algeria announced it will review its relations with Morocco after accusing it of complicity in the deadly fires.
According to BBC Monitoring, neither officials nor the country's main media outlets have mentioned climate change as a cause of the fires, or as a reason for their vast spread.
This is despite the fact that temperatures of up to 46C (115F) were forecast for the week in which the fires raged.
Also about that time, a major UN scientific report warned of increasingly extreme heatwaves, droughts, and flooding globally.
No comments:
Post a Comment