Morocco expels two foreigners

Maja Rønningsbakk, 26, and Kevin Fossnes, 27, two representatives of the youth committee of the Norwegian union Styrke, went to Laâyoune, in the Moroccan Sahara, to meet Sahrawi human rights defenders as part of an investigation into wind and solar energy projects in the kingdom. The Norwegians were notably collecting information on the investments of Siemens Gamesa, a Spanish-German energy company involved in the supply of wind turbines to the Moroccan Sahara.

They were in the middle of a meeting on Monday with the activist Mina Baali in her home, when Moroccan police officers arrived and asked them to follow them, reports El Independiente. In a video received by the Norwegian Committee for Support to Western Sahara, we see them leaving the house and being escorted by Moroccan police to a car. The two Norwegians were taken by taxi to Agadir. According to the Moroccan authorities, the Norwegians were expelled because "they are not authorized to visit the local population".

Before these two Norwegians, the Moroccan authorities had expelled on Saturday two Norwegian activists who had also gone to the Sahara to conduct investigations on renewable energy projects in the region. "After our arrest, we had ten minutes to retrieve our belongings, before being told to get into a taxi that would take us to Agadir," said Ingeborg Sævik Heltne, a 25-year-old researcher working at the Norwegian Council for Africa.

Morocco has expelled several foreign researchers, observers, activists and journalists from the Sahara in recent months. A few weeks ago, the Moroccan police expelled from the Sahara reporters from Equipe Media, an independent journalism platform. In May 2023, the authorities of the kingdom also expelled Roberto Cantoni, a researcher at the Autonomous University of Barcelona from this territory.