A gleaming exterior and an interior full of filth! Anyone who has visited Souk Khemis Aït Ouafkka can easily see that the latter clearly reflects this contrasted image which says a lot about the idea one has of cleanliness and environmental protection in this small rural village. Indeed, all along the axis crossing the souk and which constitutes its main artery, cleaning and "all nickel" reign as masters of the place. However, it is enough to take a few steps behind the buildings on the edge of the road towards the neighbouring village of Doutemanroute to see that this aspect is quickly nailed to the pillory!

The place looks like a receptacle where rubbish hideously squats in the spaces and litters the ground. Plastic bags, milk cartons, yoghurt packaging, vegetable and fruit peelings, poultry plumage and entrails, livestock droppings, … the spectacle is akin to a real Augean stable. One would say that the residents compete in ardour to submerge these places with rubbish and residues of all kinds. And as misfortune never comes alone, they evacuate their wastewater through a collector opening into the open air directly onto the nearby Oued, thus feeding a large pond whose murky waters trickle over several tens of metres just a stone's throw from the Souk. If, it seems, the residents are not offended by this disgusting filth, the passers-by, for their part, are inconvenienced by it. Because, this black spot is in the neighbourhood of the dispensary and the communal headquarters. As a result, they are legion, the users who, to bypass the passage through the souk, take the pedestrian path near this cesspool. Walking in these places without holding your nose is a feat, so much so that the nauseating odours infest the place day and night and put the sense of smell to a severe test.

Moreover, and in hot weather, clouds of mosquitoes swarm in this breeding ground and poison the life of passers-by passing through these places. Which users also suffer the assaults of numerous hordes of stray dogs that frequent these wild dumps, finding their daily sustenance there. As for the inhabitants of the souk, they no longer hide their fears of seeing drinking water contaminated, knowing that the water point supplying the commune is not far from these unsanitary conditions.

Infiltrations of infected water and contamination of the water table risk occurring at any moment. Of course, this state is primarily attributable to the residents who take liberties with the respect for their living environment and the environment. The lack of awareness of the need for the protection of nature and the environment and, consequently, of their health and hygiene, leads them to question the role of environmental preservation associations which, however, do not cease to solicit all kinds of state subsidies to assume a task which they do not fulfil. Another black spot in the picture: the failure of the communal services required to ensure, in principle, the regular collection of household waste in order to guarantee a healthy and salubrious living environment, even if it means using strong-arm tactics. The local authorities, too, are in on it, being also required by their status to react to the negligence of the commune to restore the proper functioning of the waste collection service. Unfortunately, it is the interference of all these factors that have contributed to this sad result. And the case of the commune of Aït Ouafkka is only a tree that hides the forest. All the other communes of the Tafraout circle are now confronted, to varying degrees, with this problem. From Affella Ighir, passing through Tassrirt, Tarsouat and even the regional capital, Tafraout, anarchic dumps and wastewater dumped in the middle of nature are part of a common decor for the landscapes of all these localities. With, in the list of the dirtiest communes, that of Tahala which disputes the palm in the matter; the scale of this phenomenon in the Assif N'Tahala exceeds the threshold of the tolerable and now escapes all control. Its oued, buried under piles of rubbish and detritus thrown daily by the riverside villages, also suffers from wastewater pollution. And it is the same fate that risks striking the other communes that are undergoing uncontrolled urban pressures leading to such inconveniences.

The implementation of a programme for the treatment of liquid and solid waste in these communes is therefore essential. It is a matter of preserving public health and hygiene and protecting the environment.

Such a situation of unsanitary conditions is incompatible and even contradicts the ambitious project of the Tafraout Tourist Host Country launched by operators in the sector and elected officials to give local tourism a new dynamic.