RABAT: Morocco yesterday announced a new immigration policy, pledging to review cases according to specific criteria, following sharp criticism over its treatment of sub-Saharan migrants.
The announcement comes three days after Morocco’s National Human Rights Council (CNDH) issued a report calling for “a radically new asylum and immigration policy,” to which King Mohamed VI responded by admitting “legitimate concerns”.
Those concerns have been rising during the past few months among the estimated 20,000 sub-Saharans residing in Morocco, amid reports of racist violence. In late July, a Congolese university professor living in Tangiers reportedly died after a police officer pushed him from a bus deporting him to the Algerian border.
Under the new plan, the interior, foreign and justice ministries will establish procedures in the coming days for reviewing the situation of unregistered foreigners “on a case by case basis and according to specific criteria”. The government also pledged to strengthen institutional frameworks for processing requests for asylum “in line with international standards and respectful of the kingdom’s commitments to promote and protect human rights”.
But it vowed to continue the fight against human trafficking, and called on its European partners in particular “to demonstrate a concrete commitment” to supporting the implementation of the new policy.
Morocco is the closest African country to mainland Europe, separated by the Strait of Gibraltar and just 15km from Spain at its narrowest point, making it one of the key smuggling routes for illegal migrants crossing into Europe.
Thousands of illegal African migrants regularly attempt to cross from Morocco into Spain on makeshift boats each year, making the North African country an ally of the European Union in tackling the problem. Before the government’s new policy announcement, the EU representative in Morocco, Rupert Joy, hailed the CNDH’s recommendations for “recognising the violations of migrants’ rights, which have worried us for a long time,” and for proposing “a fairer and more efficient” policy. AFP
