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Rabat – Morocco’s Minister of Youth and Culture, Mehdi Bensaid, expressed sympathy and solidarity for families and regions affected by this year’s wildfires.
“On behalf of all personnel in the Ministry of Youth, Culture, and Communication, I express feelings of sympathy and solidarity with all residents of the northern regions, following the fires that are witnessed in many of them,” the minister said in a Facebook post.
He also praised the efforts of the Royal Army, civil protection units, and local authorities, saying they “were ready to save what could be saved after extinguishing the fires.”
The statement follows criticism from online commentators and activists who expressed disappointment at the absence of any statements or acknowledgments of the fires from higher-up government officials.
These criticisms only grew after several members of the government, including Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch, were widely criticized for attending a music festival in Agadir.
Read also: #AkhannouchGetOut: Hashtag Demanding Resignation of Akhannouch’s Government Goes Viral
Online campaigners have also called for action to support the families that have been evacuated, demanding that the government open the door to donations from the public or announce a plan to support them.
“The government ought to be in the location to support affected families,” one commenter wrote on Bensaid’s post.
Wildfires that have emerged in the northern regions of Morocco have been raging for the past week, killing one person so far and displacing thousands.
Over 6,600 hectares of forestry have been damaged by the fires as of Monday, according to Morocco’s National Agency of Water and Forests, while firefighters and military personnel still struggle to contain some of the larger fires.
As the fires continue to rage, many have questioned Morocco’s readiness to combat them in the coming years as climate change continues to worsen.
Although the country had bolstered its firefighting arsenal last year by purchasing new firefighting planes, that equipment, in addition to over 2,000 personnel, continue to struggle to contain these fires.
