chargement...
3,000 Dutch nationals, including those of Moroccan descent, are stranded in Morocco amid coronavirus lockdown. Awaiting repatriation, the group is expected to fly back to the Netherlands by this weekend, De Telegraaf reports.
Speaking on Friday during a government meeting, Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok said that he is «fully committed» to helping the 3,000 Dutch people return home. «I am in close contact with the Moroccan authorities regarding this and I would like to bring that to a fruitful end», he revealed.
Blok said that it is important to at least help repatriate the most «vulnerable cases» first, adding that the ideal is to bring everyone home.
Meanwhile, other Dutch newspapers reported that Dutch citizens, including dual nationals, will leave Morocco on Sunday as a flight is expected to depart from Casablanca to Schiphol.
«We are working on brining the most urgent cases to the Netherlands, that's all I can say about it», a spokesperson from the Dutch Foreign Affairs Ministry told Volkskrant, which spoke with several Dutch people who were informed that they can be on said flight.
The same source indicates that the Ministry's emergency center for stranded travelers contacted Dutch people stranded in Morocco and told them that this is the «first and so far only repatriation flight from Morocco for stranded Dutch. How many people will be on it, is not yet clear».
For the record, a diplomatic source told Yabiladi, Thursday, that Morocco has never refused the repatriation of its nationals that bear a foreign citizenship. The same source revealed that the Netherlands wanted to «make a distinction between Dutch nationals and Dutch-Moroccans» when requesting their repatriation, a thing that Morocco did not appreciate.
