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Join on Telegram Rabat – The Serbian embassy in Rabat has denied reports that it refused visas to a Moroccan handball team, claiming instead that it could simply not issue the requested visas due to the team being late in its application.
Amid reports that the embassy denied the Moroccan team visas because of Moroccan athletes’ reputation for using tournaments to attempt irregular migration, Morocco World News reached out to the embassy to request further details about the matter.
“The Moroccan school handball delegation contacted the Embassy on November 15th, requesting information on the visa procedure for Serbia,” to which the embassy “responded promptly and sent all the necessary information,” the embassy clarified in a statement to MWN.
The delegation was due to take part in an international handball competition being held in Serbia from November 27 to December 5.
As the visa process takes between 15 and 20 days, the embassy says it urged the team to check whether there was enough time to obtain visas.
“Visa requests were sent to the Embassy a week later, on November 22, at which time they could not be processed because it was too late,” stressed the statement to MWN.
This would meean that the team was not granted visas solely due to the tight period between its request and the assessment time, and not because of illegal immigration issues as the daily newspaper Assabah reported on November 30.
The embassy also clarified that the “Secretary General of the Ministry of Youth and Sports has not contacted them, neither from Serbia nor from Morocco.”
“The Republic of Serbia gives great importance to relations with the Kingdom of Morocco and the Embassy strongly encourages cooperation between the two countries, especially in the fields of culture and sport, which greatly contribute to bringing together the two nations,” concluded the Embassy.
The visa story comes on the heels of reports of increased diplomatic consultation between Belgrade and Rabat, with the Moroccan and Serbian governments having repeatedly expressed their keenness to strengthen bilateral relations.
In May, Morocco and Serbia celebrated their 64th year of diplomatic relations, with senior officials from both countries meeting to sign a series of bilateral agreements to boost relations.
The deals aim to promote military cooperation, political cooperation, as well as intensifying initiatives for bilateral culture, sport, and youth program development.
But it remains to be seen whether the embassy’s justification will put to bed suggestions that suspicions or fears of irregular migration attempts were indeed the defining reason why the Moroccan team’s visa requests were not given the attention and positive response it may have expected.
In particular, skeptics might point to the caveat that visa requests for special occasions — participation in sporting or diplomatic events — do not necessarily follow the usual route and are generally assessed in extremely tight deadlines.
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