Spain Excluded from Key Moroccan Transit Operation Amid Diplomatic Tensions

Every year, Morocco has always associated the Spanish ports with the Marhaba operation, except 2020 when it was canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In the midst of a diplomatic crisis with its neighbor, Morocco has excluded Spain from this operation this year. Thus, Moroccans residing abroad have only airports and ports in France, Italy and soon Portugal as possible starting points. The Spanish ports including Algeciras are excluded. A huge shortfall not only for the ports but also for the merchants.

In a long report, the manager of a service station tells El Confidential "how he used to sell 150 tuna and tomato sandwiches to Moroccans in transit but today it’s zero." Service stations, merchants, and companies, etc., are all suffering losses. Losses which, according to the press, are estimated at 500 million euros for the maritime companies and associated transit companies alone.

"Things were not handled diplomatically well, and people who had no idea what they were doing got in the way," said José Ignacio Landaluce, mayor of Algeciras, thus alluding to the emergency admission of the Polisario leader, Brahim Ghali, to a hospital in Logroño, not far from Zaragoza, under the borrowed name of Mohamed Ben Battouche, of Algerian nationality, and his return to Algeria.

For now, tensions between Rabat and Madrid remain strong.