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In November 2019, Younes Zabdi, a Moroccan living abroad, decided to travel to the Philippines for family reasons. Settled down in the United Arab Emirates, the Moroccan man had to join his Filipino wife. On Wednesday night, Zabdi passed away, a few weeks after he made a video and shared it on the internet, explaining his health condition. Zabdi said that he suffered from asthma and that he could not afford buying medication to treat it.
Due to the global health crisis, the Moroccan «will be buried in the Philippines», but his burial fees will not be covered as normally the case for Moroccans in need, according to the Kingdom’s embassy in the Philippines.
«He was a resident and he died of something other than Covid-19, it has absolutely nothing to do with it», Morocco's ambassador to the country, Mohamed Rida El Fassi, told Yabiladi. «He lived between the United Arab Emirates and the Philippines and he has a wife and two children here. He had a chronic illness and he died from it», the official said, stating that the funeral fees would not be covered by the diplomatic representation.
As for helping the family of the deceased, who had a five-month old baby, Mohamed Rida El Fassi revealed that as the national «has his residence permit in the United Arab Emirates», the embassy would «grant financial support to the widow».
Moroccans stranded in the Philippines
In the last video documenting his living conditions, Younes said that it had been three months since he had not been able to pay the rent for a room he was temporarily renting. He was waiting to receive the birth certificate of his baby to get paperwork done and bring his family with him to the United Arab Emirates.
«I could have worked anywhere here, so as not to ask people for money in these times which are difficult for everyone, but unfortunately I do not master the language», he said.
Without his children's documents, the return of Younes to the UAE with his family would have been impossible. «This is the third time he has come to the Philippines, so if he wanted to bring his wife back, he would have done it the first time, not the second or the third one», Mohamed Rida El Fassi told Yabiladi. However, according to the deceased, his newborn was in a medical incubator.
«I turned to the embassy, but they told me that I was not one of the people who could benefit from aid but that my name was included in the list of nationals to be repatriated (...) I'm not here to settle down, but just to carry out administrative procedures», Younes insisted in the video.
During our discussion with the Moroccan ambassador to the Philippines, we were told that «the deceased will be buried in the country according to the Islamic rituals and that his family will receive assistance for this purpose». «The transfer of the body could take place later», he added.
In the Philippines, around thirty Moroccans are stranded because of the pandemic. During this forced stay, some of them are running out of resources while others lost their jobs.
