Moroccan police break up port protest

(Adds comments from residents)

RABAT, June 7 (Reuters) - Police used force to end the week-long blockade of a port in southern Morocco by youths protesting poverty and joblessness, but the government denied claims by locals that some demonstrators were killed.

Residents said hundreds of police arrived at Sidi Ifni port at 2 a.m. on Saturday morning to remove the demonstrators.

"The port has been under blockade since May 30 -- trucks were trapped inside and the fish they were carrying was rotting," said a local security official. "The police moved in to remove the demonstrators."

He said 20 were arrested but none were killed or injured in the operation, which began after the protesters set fire to the car of a local official.

A western diplomat however, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a reliable eyewitness told him eight people were killed.

A resident involved in the demonstration also said some people were killed when security forces attacked the protestors using dogs and truncheons.

"Dozens were injured and I saw two lying dead on the ground with head wounds," said the resident, a social worker who asked not to be identified. "Friends in different neighbourhoods told me of three other deaths."

Such protests occur regularly in Morocco but rarely result in deaths.

Locals said the protesters were complaining of being sidelined by the Rabat government, left out of economic development and passed over for public sector jobs.

They said they had hoped Sidi Ifni might become a province in its own right in an upcoming reform to administrative boundaries but were then told this would not happen.

According to residents, security forces began searching houses in the small town on the Atlantic coast 700 km (435 miles) southwest of the capital Rabat after the port demonstration was broken up.

"We are used to such demonstrations in our town but what was different this time was the plundering of people's houses," said Ibrahim Arab, a human rights activist and teacher in Sidi Ifni.

By 9 a.m., some residents took to the streets and began throwing stones at the police, he said.

"We are not sure how many people died ... but a lot were seriously injured and hundreds were detained," said Mohammed Essam, who said he escaped the town to avoid the unrest.

Abdallah Berhada, regional representative of Morocco's main independent human rights group AMDH, said the authorities were checking all vehicles entering and leaving Sidi Ifni.

"The atmosphere in the town is still tense," the teacher Ibrahim Arab said late on Saturday. (Reporting by Tom Pfeiffer and Zakia Abdennebi, editing by Mary Gabriel)