Morocco

02 October 2023; MEMO: Moroccan Minister of Industry and Trade Ryad Mezzour refused on Saturday to speak in French when a journalist asked him to do so, amid tension between the two countries over France’s decision to tighten visa requirements on three north African countries including Morocco.

27 September 2023; MEMO: The death toll from a deadly earthquake that hit Morocco earlier this month has neared 3,000, the government said Wednesday, Anadolu Agency reports.

There is an update on the death toll, the martyrs’ number has risen to 2,960

government spokesman, Mustapha Baitas, told journalists.

The last update by authorities on 13 September said the death toll was 2,946.

20 September 2023; MEMO: Morocco plans to spend at least 120 billion dirhams ($11.7 billion) in a post-earthquake reconstruction plan over the next five years, the royal palace said on Wednesday, Reuters reports.

A 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck on 8 September, killing more than 2,900 people, mostly in the hard-to-reach villages of the High Atlas Mountains.

Sept 15 (Reuters) - When a devastating earthquake shook Morocco's High Atlas mountains on Sept. 8, residents of poor areas where it struck turned for help to the state and the man who leads it, King Mohammed VI.

Yet the monarch, with his sweeping power, has kept a low profile, making just three appearances since then. He chaired two emergency response meetings with officials in Rabat and visited a hospital in Marrakech, near the disaster zone, where he gave blood after a nationwide appeal for donors.

AMIZMIZ, Morocco (AP) — Rachid Alachoun, a 40-year-old plumber, washes clothes on the roof of his home. Half of it remains standing while the other half can be found in piles of rocks visible from the roof.

Alachoun is among the survivors near the epicenter of an earthquake that hit Morocco last Friday. Authorities have reported 2,946 deaths and several thousand injuries.

IMI N’TALA, Morocco (AP) — The stench of death wafted through the village of Imi N’Tala high up in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, where last week’s catastrophic earthquake razed the hamlet’s mud-brick buildings and killed dozens of residents.

Bulldozers and responders have been digging through the wreckage around the clock in the hopes of finding the eight to 10 corpses still underneath, even as an aftershock Wednesday evening rattled already frayed nerves.

12 September 2023; MEMO: Villagers wept for lost relatives in the rubble of their homes on Monday as the death toll from Morocco’s deadliest earthquake in more than six decades rose to more than 2,800 and rescuers raced against time to find survivors, Reuters reports.

AMIZMIZ, Morocco (AP) — People in Morocco slept in the streets of Marrakech for a third straight night as soldiers and international aid teams in trucks and helicopters began to fan into remote mountain towns hit hardest by a historic earthquake.

The disaster killed more than 2,100 people — a number that is expected to rise — and the United Nations estimated that 300,000 people were affected by Friday night’s magnitude 6.8 quake.

MARRAKECH, Morocco (AP) — A rare, powerful earthquake struck Morocco, sending people racing from their beds into the streets and toppling buildings in mountainous villages and ancient cities not built to withstand such force. More than 1,000 people were killed, and the toll was expected to rise as rescuers struggled Saturday to reach hard-hit remote areas where the dead were buried even as desperate efforts were underway to save those trapped.

16 August 2023; MEMO: More than 2,000 Moroccans visited Israel during the first half of 2023, a massive 66 per cent increase on the same period last year, Sama news agency reported on Tuesday. According to a report published by the Abraham Accords Institute for Peace, 200 Moroccans visited Israel in June alone.