[Coronavirus] Belgium and Morocco reach an agreement to repatriate stranded tourists

Last Saturday, Morocco announced the suspension of flights to and from Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, France and Portugal to limit the spread of the coronavirus. The next day, the country suspended all international flights “until further notice”, but later on Sunday, the Moroccan authorities announced the authorisation for special flights to evacuate tourists from the countries concerned.

Thus, flights to Morocco will be allowed to take off until Thursday in order to repatriate the Belgians stranded in the North African country. An agreement was concluded with the Government of Morocco by Philippe Goffin, Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs.

At Marrakech airport, the largest in the country, the very tense situation in recent days began to normalise Sunday, according to AFP. Dozens of tourists were still looking for plane tickets there on Sunday evening, but calm reigned in the large hall. The hundreds of people who were stranded there for two days ended up finding solutions.

“Forty flights are operated to France Sunday and Monday from several Moroccan cities and others will follow in the coming days,” said French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on Twitter.

On the other hand, thousands of Moroccans are also stranded at European airports, especially in France. Their situation is not yet clear since they are not allowed to board the empty planes flying to Morocco to repatriate European tourists.

Sources: Belga, AFP