Morocco floods death toll rises to 18, authorities say

A car drives through a flooded street after flooding in Morocco's region of Zagora on September 7, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 09 September 2024
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Morocco floods death toll rises to 18, authorities say

  • The floods destroyed 56 homes and damaged 110 roads, as well as damaging electricity, water supply and phone networks

RABAT: Floods from torrential rains killed at least 18 people in the southern Morocco provinces of Tata, Tiznit, Errachidia, Tinghir and Taroudant, authorities said in a latest death toll on Monday.
At least four others were missing after floods swamped many villages in the area on Saturday, authorities added.
The dead include three foreign nationals from Spain, Canada and Peru, it said.
The floods destroyed 56 homes and damaged 110 roads, as well as damaging electricity, water supply and phone networks. 

Earlier, interior ministry spokesman Rachid Khalfi said “the volume of precipitation recorded in two days is equivalent to that which these regions normally experience during an entire year.”
Usually arid areas in southern Morocco and Algeria have been drenched in floods caused by massive rainfall since Friday, officials told AFP Sunday.
Areas in southern Morocco have been affected “by an extremely unstable tropical air mass,” the spokesman for the Moroccan General Directorate of Meteorology, Lhoussaine Youabd, told AFP.
This “led to the formation of unstable and violent clouds” that caused massive rainfall, he said, describing the phenomenon as “exceptional.”
As a result, the Ouarzazate region received 47 millimeters of water in three hours, and Tagounite, near the Algerian border, some 170 millimeters, according to the Moroccan weather service.
“We haven’t seen such rain for about 10 years,” Omar Gana, an Ouarzazate local, told AFP.
The heavy rains hit regions of Morocco that have been suffering from drought for at least six years.
Morocco has been experiencing severe water stress after six consecutive years of drought, shrinking dam levels to less than 28 percent of capacity by the end of August.
 

 


Seven killed in drone strike on Sudan hospital: medical source

Sudanese take to the street during a rally in support of the Sudanese armed forces in their battle against the RSF.
Updated 14 December 2025
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Seven killed in drone strike on Sudan hospital: medical source

  • Dilling, in the flashpoint state of South Kordofan, is controlled by the Sudanese army but has been under siege by rival paramilitary forces
  • Sunday’s strike comes a day after a drone strike on a UN peacekeeping base killed six Bangladeshi troops in the similarly besieged South Kordofan state capital of Kadugli

PORT SUDAN: A drone strike Sunday on an army hospital in the besieged southern Sudan city of Dilling left “seven civilians dead and 12 injured,” a health worker at the facility told AFP.
The victims included patients and their companions, the medic said on condition of anonymity, explaining that the army hospital “serves the residents of the city and its surroundings, in addition to military personnel.”
Dilling, in the flashpoint state of South Kordofan, is controlled by the Sudanese army but has been under siege by rival paramilitary forces.
Since April 2023, the army has been at war with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who control swathes of the greater Kordofan region along with their allies, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) faction led by Abdelaziz Al-Hilu.
Sunday’s strike comes a day after a drone strike on a United Nations peacekeeping base killed six Bangladeshi troops in the similarly besieged South Kordofan state capital of Kadugli, some 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of Dilling.
According to the UN, civilians in Dilling are suffering famine conditions, but a lack of access to data has prevented an official declaration.
Across the country, the war has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced 12 million and created the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.