Bitter cold and exceptionally heavy snow have beleaguered parts of Morocco this winter, disrupting schools, closing national highways - and delighting residents in cities where it had not snowed for decades.

The effects are starkest in the north African nation's Middle Atlas mountains, home to many hard-to-reach villages with poor infrastructure. The range that once protected local Amazigh tribes from attacks now isolates remote hillside villages, often for months on end.

This year, the 150 families living in Tighanimin, a village 500km south of the Moroccan capital, Rabat, were marooned when the rocky mountain paths disappeared under 1m of snow. Temperatures routinely plummet below 0°C after sundown, and the homes are not equipped with electricity or running water.