Since April 14, Morocco has beenconducting large-scale deportation operations targeting sub-Saharan Africans migrating to Europe, reportedly arresting over 100 per day, local sources told Middle East Eye.
According to Moroccan human rights groups, around 800 people were detained during coordinated raids in the forests between Fnideq and Belyounech, in the northern tip of the North African state, where many were sheltering before attempting to reach Europe.
The operation is still ongoing, with authorities then moving their focus to operations in and around Tangier. Witnesses have described mass arrests, beatings, racist abuse and forced transfers toward the Algerian border.
Sudanese and Chadian detainees were bused south and abandoned near border zones, while people from countries including Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Guinea were deported on flights departing Casablanca.
The crackdown comes as theEuropean Union has intensified its cooperation with Morocco as part of its border externalization strategy, which is a key component of the bloc’s new Pact on Migration and Asylum set to take effect in June.
The EU increasingly outsources immigration enforcement to North African nations with poor human rights records,designating over €900 million within the bloc's Global Europe development instrument to fund stricter migration control, border management and surveillance initiatives across the region.
"The EU wants to restrict people’s mobility as far down the route as possible - what officials describe asstopping migration downstream," Frey Lindsay, a journalist on Statewatch's Outsourcing Borders project, which tracks how the EU outsources migration control, told Middle East Eye. "It's about exerting border control without getting your hands dirty, basically."
Morocco is a key transit country for sub-Saharan Africans en route to Europe.They sail across the Strait of Gibraltar or climb the towering razor wire fence that separates Morocco from Ceuta and Melilla, Spanish enclaves within the kingdom.
Over the years, Morocco hasincreased cooperation with Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, to prevent migrants from departing the North African coast. In 2025, Moroccan authoritiesthwarted73,640 irregular migration attempts toward Europe, according to a report from the interior ministry, a slight decline from 2024 - attributed to alternative migration routes.
In recent weeks, Moroccan security forces have stepped up their role as Europe’s de facto border enforcer, carrying out regular raids on makeshift forest camps and key transit points used by people trying to reach Spain. Attacks on migrant camps have long been pervasive, but have escalated since April 14, with operations concentrated in the north of the country. People who are not deported are typically exiled to the south in an effort to disrupt migration routes.
Source: ZeroHedge News
