Morocco seeks to handle refugee problem

Rabat, Morocco. Being overrun with refugees and migrants, the North African nation of Morocco is doing something about its situation besides simply complaining.

The North African nation of Morocco has announced that it will find a solution for issue of the Syrian refugees stranded on its border with Algeria. No details were given as to how the situation would be resolved or if the refugees would be welcomed into Morocco.

According to a statement from the royal cabinet to News Front, King Mohammed VI called on authorities to proceed “with the immediate treatment of the situation of a group of 13 families of Syrian nationality…on the basis of humanitarian considerations.”

In a response to News Front, Amnesty International denounced Morocco’s position which did not give a justifiable reason for preventing Algeria from taking the refugees in. “The Moroccan government has so far maintained that these refugees were not on its territory. Amnesty International has reviewed the publicly available cartographic data and satellite images and confirmed from the GPS data that they were well within Moroccan territory,” the NGO said.

The families have been stranded between the Algeria-Morocco border for the last few months. Algiers and Rabat have blamed each other for the humanitarian issue and accused each other of blocking the transfer of the refugees.

Today, Algerian authorities announced steps to welcome the Syrian families on humanitarian grounds into the country but blockades on the Moroccan side prevented the passage of Syrian refugees on Algerian soil despite the presence of a delegation of the High Commission for Refugees (HCR) and the Algerian Red Crescent Society (CRA).