Three days after the powerful earthquake that struck Morocco, villagers in the mountainous areas of the High Atlas are left to their own devices, helpless in the face of the scale of the destruction and aid that is slow to arrive.
In Moulay Brahim, a town located more than an hour south of the tourist city of Marrakech, around twenty residents died, including several children, and many houses are now uninhabitable.
In one of the most affected neighborhoods, more than 450 homes were totally or partially destroyed, says Mohammed Bouaziz, member of a local association which is trying, alone, to meet the needs of more than 600 homeless people.
“We have received aid (..) but it is insufficient,” laments this 29-year-old resident of the village.
With the support of local authorities and a few donors in the region, his association has set up nine makeshift camps, where women and children are crowded together while the men work to clear the rubble with their bare hands.
The most courageous venture inside the buildings, despite the risks involved, to take out a few belongings: mattresses, blankets and kitchen utensils that are still usable.
Friday evening, the deadliest earthquake in the kingdom in more than sixty years left nearly 2,900 dead and devastated entire villages of earth or clay houses in the provinces of Al-Haouz, which includes Moulay Brahim, as well as than that of Taroudant.
In this province, the remote village of Missirat, which has around a hundred inhabitants, buried 16 of its people. The town, nestled at the top of the mountain more than 300 kilometers from Marrakech, survives thanks to private aid but feels abandoned by the authorities.
“The State did not come, we did not see anyone. After the earthquake, they came to count the number of victims. Since then, not a single one of them remains. No civil protection, no assistance force. No one is there with us,” protested Mohamed Aitlkyd, a resident of Missirat.
“We feel abandoned here (…) Our houses have collapsed, and we no longer have shelter. Where will all these people live?”, adds one of her neighbors, Khadija Aitlkyd.
No official reaction could be obtained regarding the grievances expressed by the residents of Missirat.
The Ministry of the Interior, however, affirmed in a press release Monday afternoon that “the public authorities are continuing their efforts to rescue, evacuate and take care of the injured, and are mobilizing all the necessary resources.”
But they face, in particular, the difficulties of accessing isolated villages in the mountains, and rockfalls or soil erosion having cut off the roads. According to images from public channel 2M, the armed forces were able to reopen the road leading to the town of Amerzgane very close to the epicenter of the earthquake on Monday morning, but 25 other villages were still isolated.
In Moulay Brahim, in any case, few people hope to soon find a roof over their heads.
“Everyone is poor here,” explains Mohammed Bouaziz. According to him, most of the local residents are employed on daily basis on construction sites, and will not have the means to rebuild their homes for years.
This is the case of Thami Baddi, a 34-year-old man who says he saved for 15 years to be able to build his house. “Everything is gone,” he said, unable to hold back his tears.
He knows he is very lucky to have found his wife, 9 months pregnant, and his two children alive under the rubble, after rushing to his home on Friday evening. “When I saw the state of the house, I thought none of them would come out alive.”
His wife gave birth on Saturday evening in a dispensary in the region but the establishment, which has only three beds, now requires him to take her out, and the prospect terrifies him. “How am I going to cope with a one-day-old infant in a tent where it is cold in the evening and hot in the sun.”
“I don’t know what to do,” he repeats, his voice strangled.
The weather forecasts do not reassure him, with “heavy to moderate” stormy showers predicted from Thursday in the affected provinces.
12/09/2023 06:39:35 – Moulay Brahim (Maroc) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP