Despite the fall of Bashar al-Assad, many Syrian refugees in Morocco, particularly in Rabat, refuse to return to their country.
Asked by the site Rue20 on the possibility of returning to their country after the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, several Syrian citizens who engage in “begging” at various road intersections in the capital Rabat and surrounding towns respond in the negative. They said they would rather continue the rest of their lives in Morocco or try to reach Europe. Others, however, plan to return to their country.
Read: What will become of the Moroccans detained in Syria?
According to figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Morocco has around 5,000 Syrian refugees on its territory. Some of them managed to integrate into Moroccan society: they opened their own businesses and obtained residence cards, thanks to the regularization campaigns carried out by the kingdom in 2014 and 2017.
Read: Moroccan orphans in Syria: The distress and desperate appeal of a French lawyer
After the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, several Arab and European countries rushed to suspend procedures for granting asylum to Syrians, going so far as to repatriate some to their country of origin. For the moment, Morocco has not taken any measures in this direction.
Morocco
