Young Moroccan footballer drowns trying to reach Ceuta — visa granted the same day
She drowned on 30 July during a mass attempt to reach Ceuta; her mother had been told a Spanish visa had been approved for her that same day.
A 26-year-old Moroccan footballer, Faten Ben Omar El Azizi, drowned on 30 July while trying to swim from northern Morocco to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta — the same day her mother was informed that a visa for Spain had been granted to her daughter.
Dream of Europe, life at home
Ben Omar El Azizi had played for the regional Maghreb side Atlético Tetuán and trained twice weekly — on the local pitch and on a nearby beach. Her coach said she loved training and saw football as a route out: "She dreamed she would reach Europe through football."
Playing in the women's regional league did not provide a living wage: for a win she might earn about 260 dirhams (roughly €25), and for a loss she would receive nothing. Her father died when she was 12; she lived with her mother Jamila and several siblings and supplemented her income by working at the oldest cemetery in Tetuán.
Her mother said she did not know that Faten had applied for a visa and did not understand why, if an answer was pending, her daughter chose to risk the sea. "Now I'm left alone, without children," Jamila told reporters after learning of her younger daughter’s death.
The family’s loss unfolded amid a much larger tragedy: authorities and human-rights groups put the death toll from the mass attempt to reach Spanish territory in north Africa last month at well over one hundred people — some reports refer to roughly 150 victims, while the migrant-rights organisation Caminando Fronteras has documented at least 141 deaths among those who drowned or were crushed at the land border.
Analysts and young Moroccans point to chronic unemployment and low pay as key drivers of risky migration: nearly 40 percent of Moroccans aged 15–24 were unemployed last year, many jobs pay poorly, and the minimum gross private-sector salary is around €300 per month. The debate over local investment priorities has intensified after large youth protests and as Morocco prepares to co-host the 2030 World Cup with Spain and Portugal.
Photo: EPA/REDUAN
