Morocco Sees 25% Surge in Refugees and Asylum Seekers, UNHCR Reports

In Morocco, Syrians are at the forefront among the nationalities of refugees and asylum seekers, with 3,676 people. They are followed by Yemeni nationals, then Central Africans and Ivorians. If in 2019 the refugees in Morocco come from 39 different countries, it should be noted that the majority of them (about 92%) are African, reports Médias24 based on UNHCR data. These are Guinea, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, the Central African Republic, Cameroon, Nigeria, South Sudan, Congo, Syria and Yemen.

According to the same source, among the 6,656 refugees, 38% are women and 33.6% have children. Rabat is affirming itself as the city that hosts the most refugees (1,151 refugees at the end of 2019), followed by Casablanca (782) and Oujda (591). In Morocco, 65% of refugees are distributed in 7 cities (Casablanca, Rabat, Kenitra, Skhirate/Témara, Marrakech, Oujda, Nador), while the rest are scattered in several other cities, the UNHCR indicates, specifying that 45% among them were unemployed or had no occupation in their countries of origin; 22% of them worked in the tertiary sector (services, liberal professions).

Regarding asylum seekers, the kingdom had 3,100 at the end of 2019, mainly from the Republic of Guinea (732), Cameroon (687) and Côte d’Ivoire (457). Still according to the UNHCR, three main reasons motivate these asylum applications, including "fleeing countries at war or in conflict", "sexual or gender-based violence" and "political opinion".