Morocco World Cup demolitions displace thousands from neighborhoods

The organization of the sporting competition is pushing Moroccan authorities to modernize infrastructure at a forced pace to project the image of an advanced country. This frenzy, symbolized by a future stadium with 115,000 capacity, involves the accelerated destruction of residential areas built in great urban chaos. This structural precarity was tragically illustrated in Fès, where building collapses recently claimed the lives of 22 residents caught in their sleep, then 15 other people on May 21st.

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In Casablanca, this renovation drive resurrects the colossal Royal Avenue project, postponed for thirty years. Over an area of 320 hectares, construction equipment is working to demolish more than 16,000 homes and 2,500 commercial premises. This new 1.5-kilometer axis will connect the Hassan II Mosque to the city center with a lavish development including green spaces, luxury residences, a convention center, a national theater, and a new bus station.

Facing this massive upheaval of the economic capital, a consortium bringing together public administrations and the Deposit and Management Fund (CDG) is piloting operations. This public investment entity bears the heavy responsibility of relocating thousands of expropriated families in new constructions and reorganizing commercial activities swept away by the construction site.

The maritime facade of the administrative capital is undergoing a similar fate. In the L’Océan neighborhood, adjacent to Rabat’s historic medina, hundreds of buildings have been reduced to ruins. The objective is to transform a deteriorated coastal road into a tourist and commercial promenade stretching from the Kasbah of the Oudayas to the new luxury Four Seasons hotel.

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However, these demolitions are sparking fierce controversy. As El Pais reports, demolitions began more than a year before the publication last March of the decree of public utility authorizing expropriations. The opposition denounces the opacity of the process, the weakness of compensation and the confusion surrounding relocation solutions offered to the most vulnerable residents of this district.