Moroccan Students in France Return Home Amid COVID-19 Isolation Struggles

"I was all alone in a small 20 m² studio, I was suffocating, I couldn’t take it anymore, I cracked... I called my mother and told her I was coming back to Morocco," says Zaina, a first-year master’s student at a business school in Rouen, to H24info. It has been about two months since she has been pursuing her studies remotely from her parents’ home in Beni Mellal. "My father was afraid I would get stuck in case the borders closed, he says. Too bad if I get stuck, I don’t want to live this loneliness anymore."

Zaina struggled with the isolation caused by online studies. This "weighed very heavily on the psyche. I’m very active, so finding myself without social interaction, no outings, no sports, it was really not easy," she adds. She says she did not buy a return ticket. "If face-to-face classes resume, I will return to France, otherwise I will stay here as long as possible," she adds.

Zaina is not an isolated case. Maroua and Abir, both enrolled in a major business school in Grenoble, have also returned to Morocco "because of depression." "We felt depressed with the distance learning and the lockdown. Meeting classmates had become almost impossible," explains Abir. "Staying in your studio all day is a bit depressing. We organized group calls to motivate each other but it was complicated. Our school helped us manage the stress by organizing conferences with coaches, group work... that’s what helped us overcome the depression situation," adds Maroua.

"Some of our classmates went back in November; we wanted to be patient, we were also afraid they would close the borders, so we went back at Christmas and we plan to leave again at the end of January. We are told of a resumption at school on February 8 but nothing is certain," her friend continues.