The Moroccan Consulate in Benghazi is set to begin offering services to Moroccan nationals at the beginning of the new year.
Diplomatic sources in Libya told Hespress news website that “the Moroccan Consul General in the city of Benghazi, Said Benkirane, received on September 17th the Libyan Foreign Minister in the Parliament-designate government, Abdel-Hadi Al-Hwaij.”
The two sides discussed strengthening bilateral relations between the two countries, and means of diplomatic cooperation at all levels.
The Moroccan expatriate community in Libya has repeatedly requested the Moroccan authorities to expedite the opening of its consulates, in both Benghazi and Tripoli.
These demands have resurfaced in the wake of recent floods that devastated the eastern part of Libya. As a result, some Moroccans in Libya have lost their identification documents, and the expiration of passports for some of them.
In June, the Moroccan Foreign Ministry announced the reopening of a Consulate in Tripoli.
The ministry stated that the step “comes given to the large presence of the Moroccan community in Libya.”
In May, Moroccan Foreign Minister, Nasser Bourita announced the imminent reopening of the Moroccan Consulate-General’s in Tripoli and Benghazi.
During his speech at the government weekly session at Parliament, he expected that the reopening date for the two consulates in Libya would be by the summer.
On 10 September, a devastating storm swept through several eastern regions of Libya, notably the cities of Derna, Benghazi, Al-Bayda, Al-Marj, and Sousse. This resulted in significant destruction and led to the loss of thousands of lives, injuries, and missing individuals.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres has called a flood that killed thousands in Derna, Libya a “symbol of the world’s ills.”
“Even as we speak now, bodies are washing ashore from the same Mediterranean sea where billionaires sunbathe on their super yachts,” Guterres said in the opening of the 78th session of the UN General Assembly.
“Derna is a sad snapshot of the state of our world – the flood of inequity, of injustice, of inability to confront the challenges in our midst,” he added.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM), revealed that the recent floods in northeastern Libya, have forced an estimated 43,059 individuals to flee their homes.