Massive Border Delays: Moroccan Travelers Face 17-Hour Wait at Ceuta Crossing

Many families of Moroccans living abroad but also Spaniards coming from Morocco are blocked at the border with Ceuta, waiting for hours in long queues that have reached the La Condesa neighborhood in Fnideq. Border control is the cause of this slowness, which has intensified after the recent seizure in Ceuta of 250 kilos of hashish found in the trunk of a vehicle coming from Morocco, reports El faro de Ceuta.

The situation is untenable for these families who find themselves without food and water and forced to abandon their vehicles in the queue to go shopping in the neighboring establishments or at the Ibis hotel in Fnideq. "It’s a real hell," denounces the Association of Users of the Tarajal/Bab Sebta Border on social networks, calling for a reaction from the European Union.

Monster traffic jams had been recorded at the Ceuta border in the first days of July, before the celebration of Eid al-Adha. The autonomous city government delegation, for its part, had already warned that this weekend would be critical. Yet a waiting area, identical to that of Loma Colmenar in Ceuta, is available just 20 kilometers from the Tarajal border, near Tetouan. But the authorities have not set it up for this Operation Marhaba.

Using this area would have prevented the hellish queues recorded during this Transit Operation, and which should be even more pronounced this weekend. Hopefully it will be taken into account during the next editions of Operation Marhaba.