A mower named pollution steals the breath of Moroccans, explains the weekly As is. Casablanca, Rabat, Tangier, Safi… Each year, more than 8,000 deaths across the kingdom are attributable to air pollution, or 21 victims per day according to the magazine.
This represents twice as many deaths as those who perished in traffic accidents in Morocco. And nearly half of those deaths are believed to be in the economic capital, Casablanca, according to one report. This work of the Moroccan Network for the Defense of the Right to Health and the Right to Life was carried out using data from a survey conducted in 2020 by Greenpeace and that of the latest report from the World Health Organization (WHO ) on the air quality of 2022.
As is precisely went to a popular district of the white city – the city of the railwaymen – on the boulevard Moulay Ismaïl. Right here, “the inhabitants have been suffocating for generations”. About ten meters from the houses are the factories “which constantly cover the sky with a thick gray mist”, describes the title.
Casablanca “gets dirty” and represents the“epicenter” air pollution in Morocco. In addition to the factories that surround it, the city includes a high concentration of cars, in an ever denser traffic.
A sixty-year-old resident of the railway district is alarmed by the title: “Tll those who could afford to flee the neighborhood have already done so. Some of our neighbors even have [développé] lung cancers. Fetal malformations have been observed in pregnant women. It’s dramatic.” This type of disease is indeed “constantly increasing” in the country.
A lack of action by the Moroccan authorities
Pollution is the eighth cause of death in Morocco. However, “there is no debate on the toxicity of Moroccan air nor on the sometimes fatal complications it causes”, regret to As is Ali Lotfi, President of the Moroccan Network for the Defense of the Right to Health and the Right to Life. The title points to “cemetery silence that surrounds this carnage”.
This former member of the PAM, the Authenticity and Modernity Party, is the current secretary general of the Democratic Labor Organization (ODT). He “said to himself ‘flabbergasted’ by the non-recognition by the Moroccan authorities of this phenomenon as a serious public health problem”, continues As is.
According to several reports, the maximum concentration threshold for fine particles PM2.5 and PM10 set by the WHO is largely exceeded across the country’s major cities. And the figures could be underestimated, supports the Moroccan title:
“It has been almost thirty years since Moroccan political leaders took note of the risks of air pollution, but the situation remains alarming in certain areas.”
Air pollution is also a blow to the country’s public finances. It would cost the Moroccan state 11 billion dirhams each year according to Greenpeace, points out As is. The regulatory framework relating to the fight against air pollution consists of a law and two decrees, which provide that Moroccan citizens must be informed of exceedances of pollutant thresholds and advised to protect themselves against them.
“Something that is still not implemented despite the gravity of the situation.”