Tangier Court Blocks Mass Eviction of 5,000 Residents in "Hawmat Chouk" District

The residents of the "Hawmat Chouk" district will not be evicted from their homes. On Monday, the court of first instance of Tangier ruled the twenty eviction requests initiated by the real estate company "Charaf Immobilier" inadmissible, reports Médias24, adding that the reasons for the inadmissibility are not, for the moment, known. Residents of the "Hawmat Chouk" district - built in 1982 and which has 5,000 inhabitants, about 1,704 houses and whose real estate value is 420 million dirhams - were threatened with eviction. The dispute concerns a 14-hectare plot of land, registered under number 8185/K, owned by the company "Charaf Immobilier". According to the explanations of Oussama El Ansari, lawyer for the plaintiff, the choice of the first 20 files was purely economic. The company can appeal the court’s decision.

On October 25, 2023, many residents mobilized to protest against the judgment demanding the eviction of more than 1,700 households from their homes in front of the court of first instance. "I have been living in ’Houmat El Chouk’ for 60 years and I gave birth to 9 children there. I was surprised by this summons from the court," said a widow who risks being evicted if the judgment is executed, to the website Al Youm24. According to the coordinator of the families of this district, Omar Abrich, the inhabitants had come by the thousands to the court to support the summoned families. "They know that if an eviction decision is rendered, it will open the door to other evictions," he explained. The judgment follows a complaint from the real estate company "Charaf Immobilier" and its heirs.