Stranded Tourists In Morocco Scramble To Leave

Rabat, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 21st Mar, 2020 ) :Foreign tourists in Morocco scrambled to leave Friday after the country announced further movement restrictions as part of a state of emergency to combat the spread of coronavirus.

The state of emergency -- declared on Thursday -- tightened domestic travel restrictions imposed earlier this week by introducing a requirement to secure an official document to move inside the country.

"Both flights previously advertised for today... are now FULLY BOOKED. We are working hard to try and make further arrangements," the UK embassy posted Friday on Twitter.

"In three days my team has brought in 41 flights and taken out 7801 passengers", the British ambassador, Thomas Reilly, tweeted on Thursday.

Morocco last Sunday suspended all commercial international flights "until further notice", although special trips were authorised to repatriate stranded tourists.

Images on social media showed Casablanca airport packed Friday as passengers waited for flights.

The US embassy, in a tweet, said Moroccan airspace would close indefinitely on Sunday and advised American citizens to take an extra flight arranged for Saturday from Marrakesh to the United States via London.

Passengers would have to pay the ticket price of $1,485 themselves, however, said the mission, adding that it had also coordinated charter flights out of Morocco on Friday.

Enforcement of the state of emergency was evident on Morocco's streets on Friday evening with significant deployments of security forces tasked with ensuring people remained at home, according to AFP journalists.

Police patrolled streets in cars and on foot in otherwise deserted streets, on the lookout for people who were required to show valid health or employment documentation permitting them to circulate, the journalists said.

Almost 140 special flights arranged by France have taken off since last Friday, carrying 24,000 passengers -- around two-thirds of them French -- a diplomatic source in Rabat said.

Some foreign tourists were still trying to pass through the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, a local diplomatic source said, but only Spanish travellers returning home were authorised to take the ferry for Spain.

The number of reported coronavirus cases in Morocco has jumped from eight to 66 in a week, with three deaths.

Morocco hosted nearly 13 million tourists in 2019, according to official figures.