Morocco
In February 2007, Morocco signed the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances. A National Council on Human Rights, created and funded by the government, is responsible for investigating cases of enforced disappearance.
It has been reported that from 1975 to 1993 there were more than 400 cases of disappearance in the Territory of Western Sahara and that these cases were attributable to Moroccan security forces. About 80 per cent of such disappearances allegedly occurred between 1975 and 1977. In 2012 the authorities paid more than US$5 million in compensation to 345 beneficiaries.
The selectivity and slow pace of official investigations into missing persons cases has been criticized by representatives of the Sahrawi people, the community most affected by the conflict in the Western Sahara. A 2013 US State Department report on Morocco cited 114 cases of enforced disappearance which an association of families of the missing claimed had not been resolved by the end of 2012.
In December 2022 Amnesty International issued a report on “the deadliest incident ever recorded at the Melilla border between Morocco and Spain”, which it said left at least 37 dead and 77 missing.
