The recent earthquake in Morocco caused devastating damage in the country, which killed and injured thousands of people in Marrakesh-Safi. In response to this catastrophe, numerous countries across the world attempted to support Morocco in dealing with the incident, either directly or indirectly.

Countries including France and Czech had volunteers ready to contribute in rescuing the civilians that might still be alive trapped under the debris. Financial aids were sent by other countries including China. Algeria, which severed its diplomatic relations between Morocco in August 2021, opened its airspace for earthquake aid flights, allowing them to quickly reach the destination.

However, unlike Turkey, Morocco took a more closed-off approach. During the Turkey-Syria earthquake, Turkey quickly requested for international assistance, receiving as much help as possible. Rescue crews from 90 nations volunteered during the incident. In contrary, Morocco only accepted rescue crews from Spain, UAE, Qatar, and the United Kingdom, ignoring and rejecting a considerable number of international humanitarian aid. 

Many aid organizations were frustrated with the government’s response. Arnaud Fraisse, founder of aid group ‘Rescuers without Borders’, emphasized the importance of saving survivors as quickly as possible before time runs out, recalling the group’s experience during the Turkey-Syria earthquake. They were still too late, despite reaching the quake-hit areas 48 hours after the earthquake. More than 48 hours have already passed since the earthquake occurred in Morocco.

Albeit seeming like a very frustrating situation, it is evident that the Moroccan government isn’t only rejecting help without any reason. In chaotic situations like this, coordination between different aid groups and governments are crucial to maximize the efficiency of rescue operations.

“We don’t need numbers. We need speedy work to get to the population. We have enough people to do that,”, said Lahcen Haddad, Moroccan senator and ex-tourism minister during an Associated Press interview.

Caroline Holt, director of Climate, Disaster and Crises at the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) was also supportive of this decision. 

 “One of the worst things to do in an already chaotic situation is to introduce further uncertainty and potential chaos by opening the doors and everybody coming in,” she said.

Although there are several disputes between people due to their differences in methods of operation, it is very clear that everyone is putting in an immense amount of effort to minimize the negative impacts from this earthquake.

#Morocco #Earthquake 

Ryan Lee  (rlee2027@chadwickschool.org)