Surge in Moroccan Migrants Strains Aid Groups in Southern France Amid Pandemic

"We noticed during the lockdown, it was around April/May a massive arrival of migrants from Africa. At first we thought it was going to calm down, it was going to pass and in fact we see more and more of them," confides to France bleu Fatouma Miloud Hocine, vice-president of the association "Au cœur de l’humanité 66". On her bike, she comes to the aid of these migrants in difficulty every day. "We see women and children with nothing. We can’t refuse them help on the pretext that they don’t have papers or that they’re not homeless. We’re a humanitarian association, we have to help everyone," she says.

Sylvie Ribeil, a friend of Fatouma, also provides support to migrants. With her association Les Petits Bouts 66, she distributes baby clothes, diapers and food. "I saw children barefoot in the middle of winter, their hands frozen. Their mother without money or food. At that time, with friends, we had a project to open an association restaurant, we couldn’t because of Covid, so I decided to create this association for undocumented mothers and their children."

Since January, her association has been helping mothers four days a week. Haya, a pregnant woman from Morocco, is one of the beneficiaries of Les Petits Bouts 66. "We found a bathtub for your baby and warm clothes because it may still be a bit cold in the coming weeks," Sylvie told her.

Étienne Stoskopf, prefect of the Pyrénées-Orientales, tries to explain the reasons behind this influx: "It’s true that at the Pyrenean border there is a migratory pressure that has been increasing for several years. I don’t date it from the measures taken to deal with the health crisis. In reality, since 2019, the year that corresponds to the peak of arrests, we have been facing an increase that is long and heavy for the authorities. [...] We don’t know exactly what the consequences of these health measures are [...] but we can think that it has."