Qataris are already on site with five search dogs, Spain has just sent 56 rescuers this Sunday. The international community is mobilizing to help Morocco, hit Friday evening by a deadly earthquake which has so far left more than 2,000 dead. The country is healing its wounds, but for the moment without official help from France, which, like Turkey for example, has not received the green light from Rabat to deploy its rescue teams. “We have mobilized all the technical and security teams to be able to intervene when the Moroccan authorities deem it useful,” said Emmanuel Macron this Sunday noon, during a press conference held at the end of the G20 summit in New Delhi. “The second this aid is requested, it will be deployed (…) now it is obviously up to the Moroccan authorities to decide based on their assessment on the ground and so that it is done in good order,” added the head of state.
This difficulty in providing immediate aid is also illustrated by the testimony of Arnaud Fraisse, the president of the French NGO Secouristes sans frontières. He said Sunday morning on France Inter that Morocco was blocking relief teams. “Normally, we would have wanted to take a plane which takes off in a minute from Orly,” he stressed. Unfortunately, we still have not had the agreement of the Moroccan government,” he declared.
Need blankets and tent
A French team of volunteer firefighters from the NGO Casc Appui, originally from Lyon, was however able to land in Morocco, with its dog handler and around 300 kg of equipment. She must participate this Sunday in relief operations organized around fifty kilometers from Marrakech.
While waiting for Rabat to give its instructions for the organization of solidarity, French charitable associations like the Red Crossthere Foundation of France or Secours populaire also quickly launched their calls for donations. And, then the Moroccan community in France uses its own networks to provide support. This is the case in Toulouse of Nisrine Daoudi, former Moroccan football international, whose “heart has been bleeding” since the news of the disaster broke. With his ” Association Without Borders » and in connection with its consulate, it has been on war footing since Friday evening. “The authorities are planning and organizing to manage,” confirms the former TFC player, “and the urgency is to respond to the health crisis.”
“Save lives while we can”
The official list sent to him emphasizes that the affected Moroccans need tents, sleeping bags, blankets, diapers and baby wipes. Nisrine Daoudi obtained a municipal room from the Toulouse town hall – one of the former AZF guard houses, Route d’Espagne – to collect donations in kind. But she already knows that the small building will quickly be saturated and is therefore launching a “call to companies in Toulouse who could lend a warehouse and a hangar”. The association has already mobilized some 1,500 volunteers across France and particularly wants to raise awareness among “major sports brands to collect the tents”. It also collects financial donations for the purchase of food packages.
But to deal with the most urgent and “save lives while we can”, Nisrine Daoudi especially wants to transport her “medical teams”, equipped with new care equipment, to Morocco. Suture kits and threads, femur or leg nails, cervical neck braces, saturometers appear in particular on the precise list sent by its consulate. The latter told him to “be ready”. She concludes that the situation will resolve quickly for French emergency services.