There was a mass eviction operation that was discriminatory against non-national blacks at Tangier-Boukhalef. During the course of the operation conducted by the Moroccoan authorities one migrant from Cameroon was killed and the other one was injured.

The Moroccan authorizes gave the sub-Saharan foreigners who occupied apartments an ultimatum of 24 hour to evacuate the premises. The Moroccan force started the eviction operation on June 30 at 18h; many sub-Saharan migrants were forced into buses and relocated to different cities including Rabat and Taroudant.

Two sub-Saharans were hospitalized: one died and the other suffered injuries. During the operation the migrant that lost his life ‘fell’ from his apartment building, it was in the same circumstance and way that Moussa Seck in October of 2013, also Cedric Bete in December of 2014 was stabbed to death by a Moroccan.

GADEM (Antiracist group of Support and Defence of Foreigners and Migrants) expresses their concerns over the level of resurgence of intolerance in Morocco and hatred towards non-nationals black and the discriminatory and the illegal nature of these evacuation operations.

Just by announcing that an operation will be conducted which was aimed at non-citizen blacks, does that make the authorities not guilty of discrimination based on national origin and skin color?

Are all black migrants at Boukhalef district illegal squatters? Didn’t anyone among them have leases or had paid their rents even though they didnt have contracts in due form. GADEM (Antiracist group of Support and Defence of Foreigners and Migrants) have been able to identify at least one family that had a lease but were also removed from the apartment by the police at the request of the neighbors.

GADEM will also like to point out that during an eviction process; they are legal processes that are needed to be followed such as:

The landlord must first issue an eviction notice to their tenant. GADEM questioned if such proceeding ever took place between the owner and the tenant, (note that some of the owners live abroad)

The owner must enter a civil court, which alone can authorize the expulsion and the decision must be notified to the occupant.

If the occupant refuses to leave the premises than the owner may request the prosecutor to request the assistance of the public force.

However such procedure was never applied or followed

One can seriously doubt it, since the authorities gave a deadline of only 24 hours for all non-nationals blacks to leave the apartments they occupied before being expelling by force.

There have been a series of hateful articles about black immigrants, especially against people living in the Boukhalef district. GADEM believe that those sites contributed to raising the level of intolerance and racial hatred and that the authorities should be responsible for the violations of human rights of black immigrants.