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Moroccan Women Stuck in Syria’s Al-Hol Camp Wait on Visas to Return Home

Two Moroccan women at Syria's northeastern al-Hol refugee camp. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Two Moroccan women at Syria's northeastern al-Hol refugee camp. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Moroccan Women Stuck in Syria’s Al-Hol Camp Wait on Visas to Return Home

Two Moroccan women at Syria's northeastern al-Hol refugee camp. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Two Moroccan women at Syria's northeastern al-Hol refugee camp. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Filled with great hope, Moroccan women stranded in refugee camps in Syria, especially at the northeastern al-Hol camp, are patiently waiting for their travel visas to get approved so they can return home.

Al-Hol camp, located some 45 kilometers east of Hasakeh, is sheltering around 1,082 Moroccan women and children.

“My decision to travel was not of my own will. My husband threatened me with my children, forcing me to take this journey and end up living in this place,” Mahira told Asharq Al-Awsat about the story of how she ended up in the war-torn country.

Living in a small makeshift tent alongside her children, the 40-year-old Moroccan national recounted the details of how her life was turned around after her husband decided to join the al-Nusra Front in 2013.

“When I got married 2005, I didn’t notice any signs of extremism in my husband, who was also a Moroccan national,” she said, explaining that her spouse was later moved by violent content shared on social media.

Footage conveying the toll of war in Syria had influenced many sympathizers across the world.

“During the summer of 2013, without any notice, my husband decided that we travel to Turkey. After our arrival there, he informed me that he wants to enter Syria in order to join the al-Nusra Front. He later pledged allegiance to ISIS,” Mahira recounted.

Although she strongly opposed her husband joining the fight in Syria, Mahira was faced with threats that her children will be taken away, eventually making her cave.

“He knew how strongly attached I was to my children. He said he would take them away from me by force, so I agreed,” she noted, adding that she was also physically abused by her husband.

Complaining about the poor access to information and news at the camp, Mahira said that one of her daughters frequently visits an internet café to connect with their relatives back in Morocco.

Speaking about the Moroccan parliament’s initiative to repatriate nationals stuck in Syria, Mahira expressed cautious optimism.

“I hope this news is true, and we can quickly return home,” she said in a low whisper.

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Climate Change Imperils Drought-Stricken Morocco’s Cereal Farmers and Its Food Supply

A farmer works in a wheat field on the outskirts of Kenitra, Morocco, Friday, June 21, 2024. (AP)
A farmer works in a wheat field on the outskirts of Kenitra, Morocco, Friday, June 21, 2024. (AP)
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Climate Change Imperils Drought-Stricken Morocco’s Cereal Farmers and Its Food Supply

A farmer works in a wheat field on the outskirts of Kenitra, Morocco, Friday, June 21, 2024. (AP)
A farmer works in a wheat field on the outskirts of Kenitra, Morocco, Friday, June 21, 2024. (AP)

Golden fields of wheat no longer produce the bounty they once did in Morocco. A six-year drought has imperiled the country's entire agriculture sector, including farmers who grow cereals and grains used to feed humans and livestock.

The North African nation projects this year's harvest will be smaller than last year in both volume and acreage, putting farmers out of work and requiring more imports and government subsidies to prevent the price of staples like flour from rising for everyday consumers.

"In the past, we used to have a bounty — a lot of wheat. But during the last seven or eight years, the harvest has been very low because of the drought," said Al Housni Belhoussni, a small-scale farmer who has long tilled fields outside of the city of Kenitra.

Belhoussni's plight is familiar to grain farmers throughout the world confronting a hotter and drier future. Climate change is imperiling the food supply and shrinking the annual yields of cereals that dominate diets around the world — wheat, rice, maize and barley.

In North Africa, among the regions thought of as most vulnerable to climate change, delays to annual rains and inconsistent weather patterns have pushed the growing season later in the year and made planning difficult for farmers.

In Morocco, where cereals account for most of the farmed land and agriculture employs the majority of workers in rural regions, the drought is wreaking havoc and touching off major changes that will transform the makeup of the economy. It has forced some to leave their fields fallow. It has also made the areas they do elect to cultivate less productive, producing far fewer sacks of wheat to sell than they once did.

In response, the government has announced restrictions on water use in urban areas — including on public baths and car washes — and in rural ones, where water going to farms has been rationed.

"The late rains during the autumn season affected the agriculture campaign. This year, only the spring rains, especially during the month of March, managed to rescue the crops," said Abdelkrim Naaman, the chairman of Nalsya. The organization has advised farmers on seeding, irrigation and drought mitigation as less rain falls and less water flows through Morocco's rivers.

The Agriculture Ministry estimates that this year's wheat harvest will yield roughly 3.4 million tons (3.1 billion kilograms), far less than last year's 6.1 million tons (5.5 billion kilograms) — a yield that was still considered low. The amount of land seeded has dramatically shrunk as well, from 14,170 square miles (36,700 square kilometers) to 9,540 square miles (24,700 square kilometers).

Such a drop constitutes a crisis, said Driss Aissaoui, an analyst and former member of the Moroccan Ministry for Agriculture.

"When we say crisis, this means that you have to import more," he said. "We are in a country where drought has become a structural issue."

Leaning more on imports means the government will have to continue subsidizing prices to ensure households and livestock farmers can afford dietary staples for their families and flocks, said Rachid Benali, the chairman of the farming lobby COMADER.

The country imported nearly 2.5 million tons of common wheat between January and June. However, such a solution may have an expiration date, particularly because Morocco's primary source of wheat, France, is facing shrinking harvests as well.

The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization ranked Morocco as the world's sixth-largest wheat importer this year, between Türkiye and Bangladesh, which both have much bigger populations.

"Morocco has known droughts like this and in some cases known droughts that las longer than 10 years. But the problem, this time especially, is climate change," Benali said.