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Morocco suspends flights with France over rising covid rates

November 26, 2021 at 9:43 am

People queue at a check-in counter for a Royal Air Maroc flight on 15 July 2020 at Bordeaux’s airport. [MEHDI FEDOUACH/AFP via Getty Images]

Moroccan authorities yesterday suspended all commercial flights with France to curb an increasing number of coronavirus cases.

The Moroccan Monitoring Committee of COVID-19 said in a statement that the decision was taken “to preserve Morocco’s achievements in terms of management of the COVID-19 pandemic and to deal with the deterioration of the health situation in some European countries,” adding that the suspension will start “on Friday until further notice.”

The suspension comes after a recent decision by Morocco to cancel flights with Russia, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

For weeks, France has been witnessing a fifth coronavirus wave, registering more than 30,000 new cases a day. On the other hand, Morocco’s cases have been dropping.

On Thursday, Rabat extended a nationwide state of health emergency, imposed since 21 December 2020, for an additional month.

So far, a total of 949,378 have contracted the virus in  Morocco, 14,770 of whom have died, and 931,548 have recovered, according to the US’ Worldometers.

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