Moroccan Workers Await Border Reopening with Spanish Enclaves Ceuta and Melilla

Karima Said, 39, living in Nador, has been working as a maid in Melilla since the age of 15. Since March 2020 when Morocco closed its borders with the autonomous city for health reasons, she has been unemployed, while she has to take care of her elderly mother and her two sick brothers. Karima is fed up with this border closure for almost two years. "Here in Morocco, you can find a job as a waitress in a cafe. But they pay you about 40 euros a month, without insurance or anything," she confides to El Pais.

In October 2020, several cross-border workers like Karima had demonstrated several times to demand the reopening of the borders. According to Chakib Marwan, head of the Tétouan section of the Moroccan Union of Cross-Border Workers, about 6,000 workers from Nador and Fnideq have been affected by this border closure.

The situation is more worrying in Fnideq, where the government had unilaterally ended the smuggling trade with Ceuta in October 2019 by closing the Tarajal 2 crossing. A trade that fed many families in Fnideq. As a result, poverty has increased in the city, with almost all businesses and cafes having ceased their activities. Overwhelmed, the inhabitants of Fnideq demonstrated for several weeks in February 2020 to demand an economic recovery plan for the city. The government, responding to their cry, decided to build an economic activity zone at the entrance of the city, which will be operational next year.

But to relieve the inhabitants while waiting for the inauguration of the economic zone, the authorities have recruited 7,000 people to clean the streets, installed three used clothing recycling factories, as well as a shrimp processing plant that should employ 700 people the first year, says Ahmed Bizuyan, a journalist from Fnideq.

"Most of us are still unemployed. We want them to open the border," corrects a doorman. "The day they open the border, everyone will want to go to Spain," assures an anonymous activist. Several people believe that Morocco will not open the borders until Spain has changed its position on the Sahara.