Morocco NGO delivers emergency supplies to single mums in lockdown

A small van zips through the streets of Casablanca to deliver food to single mothers, as economic paralysis caused by the coronavirus crisis puts pressure on Morocco's poor.

"We have to be quick," says Bouchra, a coordinator from NGO INSAF who is supervising the day's rounds.

The lockdown to curb the spread of the COVID-19 disease, and a lack of work and money, are creating tensions in the working-class neighbourhoods of the country's economic capital.

Each year, INSAF helps over 500 young women who have fallen pregnant out of wedlock -- viewed as a "sin" by a society marked by religious conservatism.

The organisation usually supports the mothers with medical and psychological assistance, tries to mediate between them and their families and helps find jobs for the pregnant women.

But that all changed when the coronavirus pandemic struck, with the first distress calls arriving some 15 days after the government declared a health emergency around mid-March.

"The epidemic touches everyone, but single mothers are the most vulnerable", INSAF head Meriem Othmani says.

"Their families reject them and they have to manage alone with their baby, without any support."