Torrential rains and flash floods kill 37 in Moroccan city of Safi

CASABLANCA, Morocco (AP) — Floods triggered by torrential rains have killed at least 37 people in the Moroccan coastal city of Safi, the Interior Ministry said Monday.

Authorities said heavy rain and flash floods overnight inundated about 70 homes and businesses and swept away 10 vehicles. The Interior Ministry reported 14 people hospitalized.

Local outlets reported that schools announced three days of closures. Rains also caused flooding and damage elsewhere throughout Morocco, including the northern city of Tetouan and the mountain town of Tinghir.

Safi, a city on Morocco’s Atlantic shore more than 320 kilometers (200 miles) from the capital, Rabat, is a major hub for the country’s critical fishing and mining industries. Both employ thousands to catch, mine and process the commodities for export. The city, with a population of more than 300,000 people, is home to a major phosphate processing plant.

Videos shared on social media showed cars stranded and partially submerged as floodwaters surged through Safi’s streets.

Climate change has made weather patterns more unpredictable in Morocco. North Africa has been plagued by several years of drought, hardening soils and making mountains, deserts and plains more susceptible to flooding. Last year, floods in normally arid mountains and desert areas killed nearly two dozen people in Morocco and Algeria.

This week's floods came after 22 people were killed in a two-building collapse in the Moroccan city of Fez. Morocco has invested in disaster risk initiatives although local governments often do not enforce building codes and drainage systems can be lacking in some cities. Infrastructural inequities were a focus of youth-led protests that swept the country earlier this year.

"This is a disaster, I have never seen anything like this in my lifetime," Khalil Sidki, 67, a Safi resident and member of the local branch of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights, told The Associated Press.

He said the flooding caught people by surprise in a commercial area. In reaction, many shopkeepers locked themselves inside their stores, but as water levels climbed up to 4 meters (13 feet), shops were submerged, killing those trapped inside, he said. Another Safi resident described similar scenes.

Moroccan authorities launched an investigation into the cause of the flooding. Safi received 46 millimeters (less than 2 inches) of rainfall over 24 hours — a level Houcine Youabid from Morocco’s General Directorate of Meteorology described as “normal” for the region. He said infrastructure issues could have combined with the rainfall to contribute to the flooding.

Parts of the North African nation experienced heavy rain and snow over the weekend, and authorities issued alerts for similar conditions throughout the coming days.

__ Associated Press writer Sam Metz in Rabat, Morocco, contributed to this report.

People inspect the damage caused by flash floods in Safi, Morocco, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Abderrazak Gouach)

People inspect the damage caused by flash floods in Safi, Morocco, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Abderrazak Gouach)

Shoes are left amidst the damage caused by flash floods in Safi, Morocco, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Abderrazak Gouach)

People inspect the damage caused by flash floods in Safi, Morocco, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Abderrazak Gouach)

People inspect the damage caused by flash floods in Safi, Morocco, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Abderrazak Gouach)

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Police arrested anti-immigration enforcement demonstrators at Minneapolis' largest airport Friday after they overstepped their permit, officials said, as a mass mobilization to protest the Trump administration's crackdown began across Minnesota despite Arctic temperatures seizing the state.

A network of labor unions, progressive organizations and clergy had urged Minnesotans to stay away from work, school and even shops Friday to protest the immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

“Roughly 100 clergy” were arrested, according to Trevor Cochlin of Faith in Minnesota, one of the groups organizing the protest at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. They were protesting the involvement of Delta Airlines in the deportation of immigrants.

Metropolitan Airports Commission spokesman Jeff Lea said the protesters were arrested outside the main terminal when they went beyond the stipulations of their permit for demonstrating and disrupted airline operations. Authorities have not said how many people were detained at the airport.

Bishop Dwayne Royster, leader of the progressive organization Faith in Action, arrived in Minnesota on Wednesday from Washington, D.C.

“We want ICE out of Minnesota,” he said. “We want them out of all the cities around the country where they’re exercising extreme overreach.”

Protesters have gathered daily in the Twin Cities since Jan. 7, when Renee Good was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. Federal law enforcement officers have repeatedly squared off with community members and activists who track their movements.

Organizers said Friday morning that more than 700 businesses statewide have closed in solidarity with the protest, from a bookstore in tiny Grand Marais near the Canadian border to the landmark Guthrie Theater in downtown Minneapolis.

“We’re achieving something historic,” said Kate Havelin of Indivisible Twin Cities, one of the more than 100 participating groups.

A 2-year-old named Chloe was detained with her father as they drove home from a grocery store in South Minneapolis on Thursday, according to a GoFundMe page created by Minneapolis city council member Jason Chavez.

Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that Border Patrol arrested Elvis Tipan Echeverria of Ecuador and that the toddler's mother refused to take her so she was reunited with her father at a federal detention facility.

According to an emergency petition filed in federal court, a district judge granted an emergency injunction ordering Chloe's release into the custody of her lawyer. The child, a citizen of Ecuador who was brought to Minneapolis as a newborn, has a pending asylum application and is not subject to a final order of removal.

DHS repeated its allegation Friday that the father of 5-year-old Liam Ramos abandoned him during his arrest by immigration officers in Columbia Heights on Tuesday, leading to the child being detained, too.

Department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Liam was detained because his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, “fled from the scene.” The two are detained together at the Dilley Detention Center in Texas, which is intended to hold families. McLaughlin said officers tried to get Liam's mother to take him, but she refused to accept custody.

The family’s attorney Marc Prokosch said he thinks the mother refused to open the door to the ICE officers because she was afraid she would be detained. Columbia Heights district superintendent Zena Stenvik said Liam was “used as bait.”

Prokosch found nothing in state records to suggest Liam's father has a criminal history.

On Friday, Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino sought to shift the narrative away from Liam's detention by attacking the news media for, in his view, insufficient coverage of children who have lost parents to violence by people in the country illegally. After briefly mentioning the 5-year-old during a news conference, he talked about a mother of five who was killed in August 2023.

On Thursday, a prominent civil rights attorney and at least two other people were arrested for their involvement in an anti-immigration enforcement protest that disrupted a Sunday service at a church in St. Paul. At least two of them remained in federal custody Friday morning.

Black Lives Matter Grassroots, a national hub for local BLM chapters, on Friday expressed its “gratitude” for those activists.

“Grassroots organizers in the Twin Cities are putting their own bodies, freedom and livelihood on the line to secure community,” according to a statement from the organization. “Our courageous freedom fighters who put themselves on the line to protect humanity deserve our gratitude.”

The mass mobilization coincides with a blast of cold air hitting the Upper Midwest and ahead of a severe winter storm that is expected to affect millions.

Organizers hope Friday’s mobilization will be the largest coordinated protest action to date, with a march in downtown Minneapolis planned for Friday afternoon. Early Friday afternoon, the temperature in Minneapolis was minus 12 with a wind chill of minus 28 (minus 24 Celsius with a wind chill of minus 33 Celsius).

Havelin compared the presence of immigration officers in Minnesota to the winter weather warnings.

“Minnesotans understand that when we’re in a snow emergency … we all have to respond and it makes us do things differently,” she said. “And what’s happening with ICE in our community, in our state, means that we can’t respond as business as usual.”

Somali businesses especially have lost sales during the enforcement surge as workers and customers, fearing detention, stay at home.

Many schools were planning to close Friday, but cited different reasons. The University of Minnesota and the St. Paul public school district said there would be no in-person classes because of the extreme cold. Minneapolis Public Schools were scheduled to be closed “for a teacher record keeping day.”

Associated Press journalists Jack Brook and Tiffany Stanley in Washington contributed.

Candles burn around a poem written by Renee Nicole Good during a vigil honoring Good, outside the State Capitol, in St. Paul, Minn., Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, (Kerem Yücel/Minnesota Public Radio via AP)

People visit a makeshift memorial for Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer last week, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

An image depicting Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer last week, adorns a makeshift memorial for her in Minneapolis, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

Federal agents stand guard, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)