Morocco: Travelers scramble to beat deadline for border closure with France

Dozens of travelers have been spotted trying to get out of Morocco following the announcement of the suspension of flights to and from France on Thursday.

Moroco's foreign ministry says the decision will go into effect at 22.59 GMT on Sunday November 28 and until further notice.

France has the world's largest Moroccan expatriate community with more than one million Moroccans living in the EU member.

"They must take all measures to allow Moroccans and foreign tourists to make their arrangements and this is a unilateral decision without respecting us Moroccans living abroad and foreign tourists, so I would like to express my anger towards the Moroccan government that has taken a decision without taking into account the our realities." says Ahmed Benyachi, a consultant in the medico-social sector in France.

For Michelle, a French tourist in the country this is an unfortunate development.  "Unfortunately I had to cancel everything to leave because the Moroccan government didn't give advance warning, it should at least give 4 or 5 days or even a week for people to prepare, ...."

Morocco has officially recorded around 950,000 Covid-19 cases and more than 14,500 deaths.

In October, Morocco said it was suspending flights to and from Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and Russia due to concerns about coronavirus trends in those countries.

And earlier this month, the North African country decided to tighten controls at its borders due to a spike in Covid-19 cases in Europe.