Six months after the earthquake, Morocco’s Atlas villagers still in tents
Al Jazeera
Villagers are still huddled in their flimsy tents, waiting for assistance payments to rebuild their lives.
Atlas Mountains, Morocco – Abdelatif Haddad works on his truck against the backdrop of a cluster of tents where his entire village of Tagadirt is now forced to live, in the shadow of Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains as a winter sun lowers over the valley.
They have been living like this since a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck the region six months ago in September and levelled their village which lay right there, deep in the hollow of the Ourika Valley.
Abdelatif is shadowed by his smiling five-year-old son, Amir, who dances around his feet, offering as much hindrance as help, as his 56-year-old father struggles with the truck’s ancient motor.
His family was lucky. Of the 3,000 that died that day, 76 were from Ourika, whose steep walls shadow Tagadirt.
Many are now buried in the jagged cemetery that overlooks the village, linked only to the nearest mountain road by a long and snaking sand track, vulnerable to the wind and rain that rack the region during winter.
