Morocco Faces Criticism for Excluding Migrants from COVID-19 Vaccine Campaign

In a joint statement, the Council of Sub-Saharan Migrants in Morocco (CMSM), the Democratic Organization for Migrant Workers in Morocco (ODT-I), "Documents for All" and the Beni Snassen Association for Culture, Development and Solidarity (ABCDS), explained that they want to fight until they win the case for these migrants who are often forgotten in the implementation of social measures in Morocco.

At first, they thanked "the Moroccan authorities for the efforts made to mitigate the adverse effects of the pandemic on the immigrant population in a regular situation in Morocco, who are already in difficult, even fragile, conditions, and praised the royal instructions, in order to allow migrants to benefit, free of charge, from vaccination against Covid-19".

However, they alerted the authorities to a number of technical and administrative aspects that "threaten to exclude or hinder the entry of the largest number of immigrants into the vaccines, which are composed of five categories. Holders of a still valid residence permit, those with an expired residence permit, and immigrants without residence, whose application for status establishment was rejected in 2014 and/or 2017, in addition to the two categories of immigrants who do not have resident status, and who have not filed an application for regularization of their resident status, and immigrants settled in a non-urban area, such as forests and mountains".

The joint statement details that apart from the first category, the rest of the irregular migrants in Morocco do not meet the registration conditions to be able to benefit from the vaccination due to the lack of resident status. This goes against the humanitarian approach adopted by King Mohammed VI. Therefore, the signatory associations invite the competent authorities to "put in place measures that take into account the private life of the immigrant population, and to adopt greater flexibility and flexibility towards it".

Younes Foudil, coordinator of "Documents for All", confided that the signatory bodies call on the State to take "special measures" that facilitate access to vaccination for groups without a residence permit by putting in place practical measures to facilitate the registration of these people on the vaccination website with fixed dates to be inoculated the vaccine, and accompany this act of good faith, with clear messages, in order to reassure them knowing that irregular migrants fear that inoculation will be followed by deportation.