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Ceuta and Melilla Anxious Over Potential Exclusion from Morocco’s Marhaba 2021 Transit Plan
Saturday 17 April 2021, by
While no official decision has been communicated by the Moroccan government, concern is growing among the authorities of Ceuta and Melilla, who fear the exclusion of the two Spanish enclaves from the Marhaba 2021 operation. To anticipate this, the local authorities are already conducting administrative and diplomatic lobbying.
According to El Faro de Ceuta, the authorities of the two cities have already embarked on a joint project to draw up a document on the transit of thousands of Moroccans who are to return in the current context marked by the lockdown of the Moroccan borders to prevent the spread of new variants of the coronavirus in the Kingdom. The conclusions of this approach will be handed over to the Sanchez executive, the media reports.
In the course of several formal meetings, the government delegate in Melilla, Sabrina Moh, made it known that the issue has not yet been settled by the government due to the health crisis which imposes on everyone a "specific and particular situation". And Ms. Sabrina Moh added: "the measures or decisions will be taken according to the evolution of the health crisis in the two territories".
"We hope that the Paso del Estrecho (OPE) operation will take place so that Moroccans around the world can visit their loved ones and regain that much-desired family contact on these occasions," the Moroccan consul in Algeciras, Mohamed Rafaoui, had declared on El Estrecho Digital, expressing his optimism, even though he had not yet received instructions to launch the preparations for the Marhaba 2021 operation with the competent Spanish authorities.
"All the conditions are in place for the organization of this operation this summer," he added on the Spanish media.