Spain Extends Ceuta-Morocco Border Closure Until June Amid COVID Concerns

Morocco has closed its borders with Ceuta and Melilla since March 13, 2020 to limit the spread of Covid-19. A few months later, in July of the same year, Spain adopted the same measure. Thus, for almost two years now, the land borders between the two countries have remained closed, with no prospect of reopening, recalls Ok Diario.

With a sixth wave of the pandemic in the city of Ceuta, it is impossible to consider reopening the border with Morocco, said the government delegate, Salvadora Mateos, announcing a probable reopening in "May or June", pending the implementation of "intelligent" control systems at the border crossing, as well as the rehabilitation of the Civil Guard facilities and the asylum application processing office.

To read: Ceuta-Morocco Border Remains Closed as Spain Upgrades Security Infrastructure

"When it is possible to reopen the border, border workers will be the first to cross it daily as they did before," Mateos assured, deploring the situation of these Moroccans stranded in Ceuta since March 2020, without the possibility of obtaining housing or benefiting from basic social services.

The delegate also denounced the attitude of the Moroccan authorities who do not cooperate with Spain for the repatriation of the many minors who arrived in the autonomous city en masse last May. But she welcomed, on the other hand, the good collaboration of Morocco in the control of migratory flows, which has made it possible to prevent the entry of a thousand migrants into Ceuta on Christmas Day.