Casablanca Launches Crackdown on Illegal Street Vendors Using Drones

Newly appointed wali of the Casablanca-Settat region, Mohamed Mhidia, has made the liberation of public space his battle horse. Drones are used to identify areas marked by illegal occupation of the public domain, unauthorized markets, unhealthy habitats, and gathering points for animal-drawn carts. This campaign to free up public space is pushing street vendors, cart owners and pavement squatters in the Casablanca districts to form local coordinations. The latter have sent correspondence to Mhidia. They are requesting a meeting to present him with the real alternatives to the liberation of the public domain, according to the Arabic daily Assabah.

In parallel, they plan to organize a protest and awareness sit-in in the next few days in front of the headquarters of the Casablanca-Settat wilaya. They call on the authority to open communication channels to find a realistic alternative that would guarantee a stable source of income for the thousands of street vendors, small business practitioners and workers in the informal sector. "Dialogue is all the more imperative as this campaign is taking place in a social and economic context marked by rising prices, successive crises and job losses," insist the street vendors.

After welcoming "the security and administrative approach to the liberation of public space, which is a step towards restoring order in certain neighborhoods," Nait Lahyane, a street vendor and member of the Hay El Hassani coordination committee, nevertheless calls for "not being satisfied with this approach alone, which could cause other problems." And he adds: "This type of campaign has been carried out before without finding an alternative for street vendors."