Morocco suspends flights with France over rising covid rates

 Air France at Charles de Gaulle airport

26 Nov 2021; MEMO: Moroccan authorities yesterday suspended all commercial flights with France to curb an increasing number of coronavirus cases.

The Moroccan Monitoring Committee of COVID-19 said in a statement that the decision was taken "to preserve Morocco's achievements in terms of management of the COVID-19 pandemic and to deal with the deterioration of the health situation in some European countries," adding that the suspension will start "on Friday until further notice."

The suspension comes after a recent decision by Morocco to cancel flights with Russia, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

For weeks, France has been witnessing a fifth coronavirus wave, registering more than 30,000 new cases a day. On the other hand, Morocco's cases have been dropping.

On Thursday, Rabat extended a nationwide state of health emergency, imposed since 21 December 2020, for an additional month.

So far, a total of 949,378 have contracted the virus in Morocco, 14,770 of whom have died, and 931,548 have recovered, according to the US' Worldometers.