Morocco launches 'war on slums'

Cities like Casablanca are being swamped by outlying slums

By David Bamford in Rabat

Morocco's King Mohammed VI has ordered his government to tackle worsening poverty in an attempt to curb the growing shanty towns around the country's main cities.

In a speech televised live to the nation, the king called for a supreme jihad or holy war aimed at eradicating the social conditions that had created the shanty towns - and laws to stop the slums spreading.

Four million inhabitants living in slums and shanty towns - we urge our government to combat this dangerous phenomenon.

King Mohammed VI

The social fabric of the country was under threat, he said, and action was a national priority.

The king said some two million impoverished citizens are now concentrated in the coastal belt that takes in Casablanca and Rabat. Another two million are on the Mediterranean coastline near Tangiers and at Oujda near the border with Algeria.

Despite the existence of an elected parliament and government in Morocco, it is the monarch and his advisers who hold the main decision-making powers.

The fact that King Mohammed has personally highlighted this issue indicates the seriousness with which it is being taken.

What Moroccans probably fear most is the kind of social and political degeneration that has taken place since the 1980s in neighbouring Algeria.

The shanty towns are breeding-grounds for the cause of political Islam, which has been relatively dormant so far in Morocco but lies just beneath the surface.

The rural Berber community is now also beginning to stand up for further rights, and in a previous speech last month the king promised to address Berber demands.