Stranded Belgian-Moroccans Await Repatriation as Morocco Halts Air Travel

On Facebook, the appeal of an Internet user, Amal, to the ministers, the Belgian consul in Morocco and the press, is striking. "I am addressing you on behalf of my parents, two Belgians who left for Tangier, Morocco, on March 4 to spend their vacation, as usual." But unfortunately, everything went very fast. The first cases of coronavirus are recorded in the country. The measures put in place are drastic. Amal’s parents manage to get through the roadblocks and arrive in Fez. "After hours of waiting, an immeasurable stress and unbearable fatigue, they are told that there will be no flight. Devastated, they can only return to Tangier, without having slept all night," she recounts.

Messages like Amal’s scroll all day long on social media. "My parents are also stuck in Tangier. It’s scandalous," reacts another Internet user, who finds that Belgium could have done more for the binational citizens stuck in Morocco. Several days ago, the Belgian Foreign Affairs invited their nationals abroad who wish to return to contact the local Belgian representations. But they first have to register on the travellersonline.diplomatie.be website. Here again, the complaints are numerous. "On Saturday and Sunday, we had 30,000 registrations on this site," explains Arnaud Gaspart, spokesperson for the FPS Foreign Affairs, to rtbf.be. "Now we are at 27,000. But it is difficult to draw conclusions from this about the actual number of Belgians present abroad.

This weekend, despite the travel restrictions decreed all over the world, Belgium carried out the repatriation of nationals stranded in Tunisia. On Friday, March 20, Air Belgium repatriated travelers from Argentina. Foreign Minister Philippe Goffin recalled on Monday evening that "several hundred Belgian nationals blocked abroad" have already returned to Belgium. But those from the Belgian-Moroccan community are waiting their turn. It is in this wait that a rumor began to circulate about the local authorities having decided to keep all binational citizens on their territory. "When you have dual Belgian-Moroccan nationality, the Moroccan authorities consider that Moroccan nationals for the moment do not leave the territory," confirms Minister Goffin, interviewed by RTBF. "Each country organizes the management of its nationals as it wishes."

Contacted by RTBF, Mohammed Ammeur, the Moroccan ambassador to Brussels, did not wish to comment on the issue. But according to the Belgian side, the state of health emergency decreed for one month in Morocco is not helping and makes any repatriation more difficult. All binational citizens in the same situation as the Belgian-Moroccans are invited to go to the Facebook page #Belgessolidaires. The idea is that Belgians who reside permanently in a foreign country can offer practical advice and assistance to nationals currently stranded there due to the coronavirus epidemic.