Drought-hit Morocco closes its famous public baths 3 days a week to save water

1 / 3
A Moroccan traditional bath is empty of customers in Rabat on March 4, 2024 following a new rule closing the facilities a few days a week in an effort to save water. (AP Photo)
Short Url
Updated 08 March 2024
Follow

Drought-hit Morocco closes its famous public baths 3 days a week to save water

  • Little rainfall and hotter temperatures have shrunk Morocco’s largest reservoirs, frightening farmers and municipalities that rely on their water
  • Morocco’s neighbors have chosen to ration water in varying ways. In Tunisia, entire neighborhoods had their taps shut off for several hours each day last year

RABAT, Morocco: For years, Fatima Mhattar has welcomed shopkeepers, students, bankers and retirees to Hammam El Majd, a public bath on the outskirts of Morocco’s capital, Rabat. For a handful of change, they relax in a haze of steam then are scrubbed down and rinsed off alongside their friends and neighbors.

The public baths — hammams in Arabic — for centuries have been fixtures of Moroccan life. Inside their domed chambers, men and women, regardless of social class, commune together and unwind. Bathers sit on stone slabs under mosaic tiles, lather with traditional black soap and wash with scalding water from plastic buckets.
But they’ve become the latest casualty as Morocco faces unprecedented threats from climate change and a six-year drought that officials have called disastrous. Cities throughout the North African nation have mandated that hammams close three days a week this year to save water.
Mhattar smiled as she greeted families lugging 10-liter (2.6-gallon) buckets full of towels, sandals and other bath supplies to the hammam where she works as a receptionist on a recent Sunday. But she worried about how restrictions would limit customer volume and cut into her pay.
“Even when it’s open Thursday to Sunday, most of the clients avoid coming because they are afraid it’s full of people,” Mhattar said.
Little rainfall and hotter temperatures have shrunk Morocco’s largest reservoirs, frightening farmers and municipalities that rely on their water. The country is making painful choices while reckoning with climate change and drought.
The decision to place restrictions on businesses including hammams and car washes has angered some. A chorus of hammam-goers and politicians are suggesting the government is picking winners and losers by choosing not to ration water at more upmarket hotels, pools, spas or in the country’s agricultural sector, which consumes the majority of Morocco’s water.
“This measure does not seem to be of great benefit, especially since the (hammam) sector is not considered one of the sectors that consumes the most water,” Fatima Zahra Bata, a member of Morocco’s House of Representatives, asked Interior Minister Abdelouafi Laftit in written questions last month.
Bata asked why officials in many municipalities had carved out exceptions for spas, which are typically used by wealthier people and tourists. She warned that hammam closures would “increase the fragility and suffering of this class, whose monthly income does not exceed 2,000 or 3,000 dirhams at best.” Hammam workers make an amount equivalent to $200 to $300.
Laftit has not yet responded, and his office did not respond to questions from The Associated Press.
The closures affect the roughly 200,000 people directly or indirectly employed in the hammam sector, which accounts for roughly 2 percent of the country’s total water consumption, according to Morocco’s national statistics agency.
Hammams have been closed in cities including Casablanca, Tangier and Beni Mellal since the interior minister asked local officials to enact water-saving measures earlier this year. With the price of heating gas high and temperatures dropping, the closures have raised particular concern in towns high in the Atlas Mountains where people go to hammams to warm up.
Mustapha Baradine, a carpenter in Rabat, likes to enjoy hammams with his family weekly and doesn’t understand how the modest amount of water he uses is consequential in a drought. For him, the closures have fostered resentment and raised questions about wealth, poverty and political power.
“I use only two buckets of water for me and my children,” he said. “I did not like this decision at all. It would be better if they would empty their pools,” he said of local officials.
Morocco has reduced the prevalence of poverty in recent years, but income inequality continues to plague both rural and urban areas. Despite rapid economic development in certain sectors, protests have historically arisen among working class people over disparities and rising costs of living.
Morocco’s neighbors have chosen to ration water in varying ways. In Tunisia, entire neighborhoods had their taps shut off for several hours each day last year. In part of Spain, communities were prohibited last summer from washing cars, filling swimming pools and watering gardens.
Fatima Fedouachi, the president of a hammam owners’ association in Casablanca, said the closures had changed the economics of operating a hammam. Though hammam associations have yet to publish statistics on layoffs or lost revenue, they have warned about the effect on owners, chimney technicians and receptionists.
“Owners are obligated to perform their duties for their workers,” Fedouachi said.
Even on days when they’re closed, Fedouachi said, most hammams continue burning wood to keep the baths warm rather than let them cool off and heat them again. Owners would prefer rationing for certain hours each day instead of being forced to close, she added.
Some hammam-goers say the closures appear to be raising awareness of drought, regardless of how much they save. Regulars like 37-year-old housekeeper Hanane El Moussaid support that nationwide push.
“If there’s less water, I prefer drinking over going to the hammam,” El Moussaid said.
 


Sisi meets Burhan in Cairo to discuss restoring stability in Sudan

Updated 8 sec ago
Follow

Sisi meets Burhan in Cairo to discuss restoring stability in Sudan

  • 2 leaders also planned to consult on strengthening bilateral ties 

DUBAI: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Sudan’s Transitional Sovereign Council President Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan met in Cairo on Monday to discuss ways to restore stability and promote development in Sudan.

The two leaders also planned to consult on strengthening bilateral ties and addressing various regional issues, Ahram Online reported.

Al-Burhan’s visit comes amid ongoing conflict in Sudan, where fighting between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces has devastated the country.

Al-Burhan declared Khartoum “free” of RSF control in March after a major military push.

The war, which erupted in April 2023 over disputes regarding the RSF’s integration into the military, has left tens of thousands dead, with both sides accused of committing atrocities.

Sudan remains deeply divided, with the army controlling the north and east, while the RSF holds much of Darfur and parts of the south.


Iraq’s counter-terrorism chief discusses security with Egyptian, Jordanian envoys

Updated 50 min 43 sec ago
Follow

Iraq’s counter-terrorism chief discusses security with Egyptian, Jordanian envoys

  • The meetings focused on strengthening cooperation, exchanging expertise and sharing perspectives on security issues

DUBAI: The head of Iraq’s Counter-Terrorism Service, Lt. Gen. Karim Al-Tamimi, held separate meetings on Monday with the Egyptian and Jordanian military envoys to discuss ways to boost security cooperation.

Al-Tamimi met with Egyptian military attache Col. Akram Sharif and Jordanian military attache Brig. Gen. Anwar Al-Bashbasha, according to a statement from the Counter-Terrorism Service. 

The meetings focused on strengthening cooperation, exchanging expertise and sharing perspectives on security issues between the three countries.


Jordanian armed forces foil two major narcotics smuggling attempts

Updated 54 min 32 sec ago
Follow

Jordanian armed forces foil two major narcotics smuggling attempts

  • Border Guard Forces, in coordination with military security and the Anti-Narcotics Department, monitored a group of smugglers trying to illegally cross into Jordan

DUBAI: Jordan’s Eastern and Southern Military Zones thwarted separate drug smuggling attempts over the past two days, as the Jordanian Armed Forces-Arab Army intensified efforts to protect national security.

On Monday, the Eastern Military Zone carried out a special operation, stopping an infiltration attempt from Syrian territory.

An official military source said Border Guard Forces, in coordination with military security and the Anti-Narcotics Department, monitored a group of smugglers trying to illegally cross into Jordan.

Rapid reaction patrols were sent out, applying the rules of engagement, which resulted in injuries among the smugglers and the retreat of others back into Syria.

A subsequent search uncovered large quantities of narcotics, which were transferred to the relevant authorities.

On Sunday evening, meanwhile, the Southern Military Zone foiled an attempt to smuggle narcotics using a drone along its western front.

The drone was tracked, intercepted and brought down inside Jordanian territory, with the seized drugs handed over to the relevant agencies.


‘New inferno was unleashed’ with restart of Gaza war, says ICRC director

Updated 28 April 2025
Follow

‘New inferno was unleashed’ with restart of Gaza war, says ICRC director

  • Gaza is experiencing and enduring death, injury, and multiple displacements, the ICRC says

DOHA: A “new inferno” has been unleashed on Gaza following the restart of war in the Palestinian territory, the director general of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Monday.
“Gaza is experiencing and enduring... death, injury, multiple displacements, amputations, separation, disappearance, starvation and denial of aid and dignity on a massive scale, and just when the all important ceasefire led people to believe they had survived the worst, a new inferno was unleashed,” Pierre Krahenbuhl told a Doha conference on security.


Iran repelled large cyberattack on Sunday

Updated 28 April 2025
Follow

Iran repelled large cyberattack on Sunday

  • Iran has in the past accused its arch-foe Israel of being behind cyberattacks
  • In 2021, a large cyberattack on Iranian petrol stations was said by Tehran to likely be caused by Israel

DUBAI: Iran repelled a large cyberattack on its infrastructure on Sunday, said the head of its Infrastructure Communications Company, a day after a powerful explosion damaged its most important container port and another round of talks with the US over Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.
“One of the most widespread and complex cyberattacks against the country’s infrastructure was identified and preventive measures were taken,” Behzad Akbari said on Monday, according to semi-official Tasnim news agency, without giving more detail.
Tehran and Washington concluded a third round of nuclear talks on Saturday in Oman, on the same day Iran’s biggest port of Bandar Abbas was rocked by a large explosion whose cause remains unknown.
Chemicals at the port were suspected to have fueled the explosion, but the exact cause was not clear and Iran’s Defense Ministry denied international media reports that the blast may be linked to the mishandling of solid fuel used for missiles.
Iran has in the past accused its arch-foe Israel of being behind cyberattacks. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Iran’s nuclear infrastructure should be entirely dismantled — not just limited to prevent the development of nuclear weapons.
In 2021, a large cyberattack on Iranian petrol stations was said by Tehran to likely be caused by Israel. In 2023, a similar but larger cyberattack disrupted about 70 percent of petrol stations, with a group called “Predatory Sparrow” claiming the attack as retaliation to “the aggression of the Islamic Republic and its proxies in the region.”