Moroccans trapped in Spain for 2 months head home at last
RABAT, Morocco (AP) — It’s a reverse migrant crisis: Moroccan workers trapped in Spain are begging their own government to let them come back home.
Construction worker Mohammed Benali is among hundreds of Moroccans who headed to their jobs in Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta one day in March thinking they’d be home for dinner — but instead they found themselves trapped for more than two months by Morocco’s abrupt and unusually strict border closures to keep out the virus.
They have slept in a parking lot, gyms, mosques, churches or with generous employers. One stranded woman gave birth. A few were so desperate they jumped into the Mediterranean Sea to swim home.
At last, Morocco is starting to allow them back.
Benali, who reached Moroccan soil on Friday, was so shaken by the experience that he told The Associated Press: “I’ll never return to Ceuta again.” Others are still stuck, their return dates uncertain.
While countries around the world closed their borders to foreigners to keep out the virus, Morocco went even farther, barring its own citizens from coming home in hopes of limiting the risk of coronavirus arriving on Moroccan soil and overwhelming its underprepared hospitals.
That left more than 21,000 Moroccans stranded around the world. They include legal workers in the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla who live in Morocco and work in Spain in construction, commerce, or as domestic employees, as well as undocumented migrants whose jobs have dried up amid economic shutdowns and Moroccan tourists whose visas have now expired.
When she was nine months pregnant, Houria Douas went to Ceuta to visit her brother and buy baby clothes but ended up getting stuck. She gave birth to her firstborn in a Ceuta hospital because Morocco wouldn’t...
