Neglected Morocco earthquake survivors struggle with slow rebuild

Nearly a year after an earthquake killed around 3,000 people and destroyed entire villages in Morocco's Atlas Mountains, many who survived are still living in tents or temporary shelters, frustrated at the slow pace of reconstruction but also doing their best to help each other.

When the magnitude 6.9 quake - the country's deadliest in more than 60 years - struck in September 2023, it originally displaced some 500,000 people (many of whom have still not been able to go home), damaging or destroying nearly 60,000 homes.

The Moroccan government pledged to rebuild, announcing in early November that every family who had lost their home would receive 140,000 Moroccan dirhams (around $14,500) for reconstruction, and those whose homes had been damaged would be given 80,000 dirhams ($820). It also promised a monthly stipend of $2,500 dirhams ($258) to survivors, for a period of one year.

But nearly 12 months later, many are still living in temporary shelters with inadequate basic services. And survivors across the mountainous Al Haouz province, where the quake hit hardest, say that while many people have received at least one instalment of government aid, and some monthly assistance, the process has been complicated: Most still have not been able to navigate the complicated bureaucratic process of rebuilding so they can restart their lives.

Hamid Abdellah, the 36-year-old president of Anmoun Amsguine - a local organisation founded in 2015 to focus on cultural activities in the village of Amsguine that quickly shifted its activities to help survivors after the earthquake - said little has changed since September, and people feel forgotten.

"We understand everyone is focused on Gaza right now, but people have largely forgotten what happened to us," he told The New Humanitarian. "In our village, 86 houses were damaged. 80 were completely destroyed, and six were partially damaged. Those six were repaired with government aid, but only two houses have been rebuilt."

Reconstruction promises

According to the latest available data from the Moroccan government commission in charge of post-quake reconstruction and development, 56,607 families whose homes had been either damaged or completely destroyed have been given a first instalment of 20,000 dirhams ($2,070).

This number could not be independently verified, and Morocco's Ministry of Economy and Finance did not respond to requests for comment.

But an official in Al Haouz province, who is also a representative of the Ministry of Interior and asked to remain anonymous, told The New Humanitarian that - as of May - 26,000 families had received at least one payment to help with reconstruction. This is similar to local media reports from late March that said 24,137 families had received some kind of government reconstruction aid.

Ahmed Id Ellmouden, a 61-year-old hotelier who lives in the village of Ouirgane, has received his first tranche of money but is still sleeping in a makeshift tent in the garden of what was once his thriving hotel. Broken dishes are still scattered on the floor, surrounded by rubble.

"We received the first part of our reconstruction aid," he explained. "But we can't do anything with it, as we do not have permission to build. Only three houses are finished in our village, and one is currently under reconstruction."

"The heat in the tent is unbearable," he added. "With temperatures rising to 47 degrees Celsius [in the summer months], we are also afraid of wildfires. Since the earthquake, the fire station here has not been working."

Ellmouden's situation is consistent with what many survivors told The New Humanitarian: While money to rebuild has started to arrive, getting permission to actually use that money is a second significant hurdle.

Government data says 51,031 reconstruction permits - for houses destroyed or damaged - have been granted. But only around 3,000 damaged and destroyed houses across Al Haouz were under construction as of late March, according to local media reports. This is likely due to a variety of reasons. In some cases, permissions are denied if the land homes were built on is deemed to be vulnerable to future earthquakes. Other media reports have suggested that some families requested government re-assessments after their ruined homes were deemed to be only partially damaged.

According to Abdellah, other families have been disqualified from receiving any assistance at all because they were officially registered with the government as living somewhere other than in the mountains. He said he was aware of 35 families who lost their homes but have been disqualified from receiving aid "because their national identity cards were registered in other cities even though they have been living here a long time".

Responding directly to this point, the Al Haouz official said it was to be expected: "Some people have a house in the region, but it is only a secondary residence. In such cases, the person will not receive any aid because their primary residence is elsewhere."

They said that the process of allocating reconstruction aid and building permits followed strict procedures to ensure fairness and deter any false claims, explaining that 55 committees were dispatched immediately after the disaster to evaluate the damage. These committees, which included police, gendarmerie, various agencies, and municipalities, collected data for over a month and made the decisions about eligibility.

"In the initial phase, some victims felt they weren't accounted for, prompting an additional application process in the second phase to ensure everyone was included," the official added. This led to another round of data collection and decisions.

Gaps persist

In addition to waiting for money or permission, survivors say there is still not enough housing, aid, or various basic needs like access to clean drinking water.

In Amsguine, Abdellah said some help had come in from a US-based NGO that worked with a Moroccan group to move villagers from tents to temporary container-type shelters.

But people need more. "We are trying our best to fill in the gaps of lacking aid, but it's not enough," Abdellah said. "My sister was bitten by a scorpion last month. We waited for an ambulance for an hour and a half. It took us three hours to find an emergency room."

Abdellah added that the 2,500 monthly dirhams promised by the government has been irregular at best. "There are many problems. Some receive the monthly stipend from the government, and others receive nothing," he said, adding that some problems appear to be due to residency registration. In other cases, he added, families with many children receive the same amount as smaller families, making the money almost useless.

In response to such claims, the Al Haouz official said: "A family is regarded as one if it is registered as such with the Ministry of Social Development. After an earthquake, individuals from the same family cannot be treated as two separate families for aid purposes."

Audrey Stauth, operations manager for the response at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), told The New Humanitarian there were some clear disparities: "In some communities, 80% to 90% of villagers receive cash assistance from the government, while in others, it is much lower. This is mainly based on the level of destruction in the village."

Stauth said the IFRC was in the process of designing a "cash for basic needs [strategy to] target some of the most vulnerable, in collaboration with the authorities. We are hoping to be able to support some communities with this project soon."

Being turned down for aid adds to the pain many already suffered because of the earthquake.

Omar Id Ben Said, 51, lost his two daughters in Amsguine, and was injured himself. He still walks with a limp, and said he was denied government aid, without any explanation. "Nothing is making me happy. My wife died long before the earthquake, and now my two girls," he said. "I am just waiting for aid from people and trying to survive."

Life continues, but tensions rise along with solidarity

In Amizmiz, around 60 kilometres south of Marrakech, hundreds of tiny tents are dotted around the city. Home to around 11,000 people, the town is relatively large compared to many of the region's douars - Amazigh (Berber) mud-brick settlements built with local materials and traditional techniques.

Given the town's proximity to the epicentre, only a few homes were left undamaged, and everyone was affected in one way or another.

Salma Bara, a 19-year-old university student, lived with her mother in a tiny tent in Amizmiz until the family returned to their damaged house in mid-June. "Like many other families, we decided to return despite knowing the risks of the house recollapsing, because the heat in the tent was unbearable." She travels an hour and a half each way to get to her classes, and said that back in her home it is hard to study due to the poor internet connection and unbearable heat.

"People's heads are full," Bara said, reflecting on life since the disaster. "There is too much tension. Sometimes people fight."

Even with the monthly stipend, many households struggle to make ends meet. Bara, for instance, spends 300 dirhams ($30) each month on transport to Marrakech for her economics studies. In the meantime, her family relies solely on one stipend shared with her grandparents. They not only lost their homes but also their pottery business and are now struggling to find jobs.

Given the delays in reconstruction, people in the mountains are coming together to help each other, with the support of local and international NGOs.

In the immediate aftermath of the quake, local associations were set up to make sure that the aid that poured in from NGOs, government agencies, and individual donors was distributed equitably.

Now, with less aid coming in, these organisations have shifted their focus towards advocating for attention to their ongoing plight.

"These days in our village, Moroccans, both local and those passing through, are giving us the most donations, contributing whatever they have to help our community."

"In the beginning, we received aid from many different parties, NGOs, and the government," said 37-year-old Saïd Ait Bihi, a member of his local association who lives with his family in the small village of Tassila. These days, he said most of the aid they get is from local NGOs and individual Moroccans who come to the mountains to bring what they can.

He said 10 people in his village were killed by the earthquake and 240 people who survived are living in container shelters - donated by a Moroccan NGO - in a valley opposite where their homes once stood.

Bihi and his wife, 25-year-old Khadija Ait Mbark, welcome outsiders who bring help, preparing food and ensuring the aid gets where it needs to go. "These days in our village, Moroccans, both local and [those] passing through, are giving us the most donations, contributing whatever they have to help our community," Bihi said.

For a while, the couple and their two young children temporarily moved out of their own container to a makeshift tent, giving it to two young volunteers from CorpsAfrica - an organisation that sends African university students to volunteer in rural communities - after their own tent burned down. It's a sign of the sort of solidarity that locals and volunteers say has kept them going over the long year.

The volunteers - Fatima-Zahra Aznag and Ghizlan Laabiky - are both 23 years old and originally from Guelim, a city in south Morocco. They arrived in November, just two months after the quake hit, and stayed in Tassila until June. While they were in town, they organised daily educational and entertainment activities, for local women and children.

While their objective was to support the community and help to compensate for the shortcomings in the local school system - which many say was lacking even before the quake -the volunteers ended up becoming ad hoc mental health carers too.

"We give these women and children a space to express their emotions, share their experiences, and try to offer comfort," Aznag said. Among those they worked with are two siblings who survived, in the arms of family members who did not. "One of the children cried every afternoon as it got dark. We aimed to bring them some moments of joy," she added.

They organised games and dances, in addition to reading, writing, and other educational activities.

Mental health support is among the unmet gaps, many people said. Abdelaziz Indjarene, a native of the village of Imi N'Tala, lived in Marrakech but returned to his home after the earthquake. He lost his mother, grandmother, and family home in the earthquake.

"Only now am I beginning to process what happened," he said. Some days he can't eat, thinking about his loved ones trapped in the rubble. "In the first months, people were busy trying to get aid and help. It wasn't until a few months passed that we truly realised what had happened. We are really shocked and really in need."

Dividing up the work, diversifying income

Local efforts are holding the disaster-hit communities together, but it may be a long time before reconstruction and sufficient aid arrives.

"Even though the government initially estimated that reconstruction would take one to two years, they are now saying that it will take longer," said Stauth of the IFRC. "It is too early to tell how long it may take in Morocco."

For Stauth, aftershocks, extreme weather events, and remoteness are some of the key logistical challenges to reconstruction. "We see communities that have today received very little assistance because they are in very remote locations," she stressed.

But even in those places, people are trying to help each other.

Ellmouden is also part of a local association that primarily focuses on dividing rebuilding tasks. He, his daughter, and two others are assigned to help maintain tents - some makeshift, others donated by the government, and others sent in by Moroccan and international NGOs. She also volunteers at a makeshift container nursery.

Abdellah said Amnoun Amsguine has set up a cooperative that hopes to open up new employment opportunities. "We have established both an agricultural cooperative and a tourist cooperative, and have secured land," he explained. "However, we still lack the financial support needed to activate the cooperatives."

People are also finding new ways to get by, as they don't expect the Moroccan government will continue the monthly stipends beyond September.

Ellmouden's family has improvised a coffee shop in the hotel's garden, which faces a main road, selling coffee and tea to people who drive by. The family makes between 50 ($5) and 200 dirhams ($20) a day. It's the best they can do, he said, but still "not enough to sustain my family".