The city council of Tanger, Morocco, has doubled efforts and is now regularly cleaning and disinfection streets, and ensuring the delivery of other basic services such as waste collection in order to avoid any focus of infection.

The city council of Tanger, Morocco, has doubled efforts and is now regularly cleaning and disinfection streets, and ensuring the delivery of other basic services such as waste collection in order to avoid any focus of infection. Raising awareness about the measures in place and the need to comply with them is another important task the municipality undertakes, particularly through its neighborhood councils, and particularly now that the Ramadan festivities have started.

As from 20 of March, Morocco approved the sanitary urgency state along with strict prevention measures, urging inhabitants to stay at home and to limit their movements to essential grossery and pharmacy shopping. Religious and worship centers have been closed until further notice, public markets have limited their schedule and the use of masks is obligatory. These measures, among others, will remain in place as at least until 20 May.

Similar to what is happening in other cities in Morocco, there are numerous solidarity initiatives flourishing in Tanger, particularly in relation to the basic good supplying of the most vulnerable citizens driven by local and international civil society organisations (UNICEF, OIM, among others). There has also been a flow of public and private donations to the most affected groups.

The situation is particularly critical for migrants, mostly unemployed or informal workers, and with very limited access to housing, educational or social rights. Basic service delivery and information provision during the crisis needs to consider the specific context of migrants, good practices and guidelines are being collected, among others, by a live guide of the Mayors Migration Council. The city council of Tanger is committed to pursue its cooperation with MedCities and the city council of Barcelona in the frame of the project TangerAccueil of the MC2CM Programme managed by ICMPD for the creation of an information center and a consultative migration council. The project is currently building a map of actors and services offering a wide range of services to migrants in the city.

Picture source: David Jones