Technicians from the Ministry of the Interior and several public companies are studying a reform of the Chinatown border posta district between the Moroccan town of Nador and the Spanish town of Melilla, the border where, on June 24, at least 23 sub-Saharan migrants died from crushing and suffocation.
The reform of the Melilla crossing, one of the last arrangements that remain to be made on the border with Morocco, is part of a climate of great understanding between Madrid and Rabat, and in which the Spanish part is not sparing winks: among others, this summer, a reinforcement of police contact and, at the turn of the summer period, another turn of the screw to the acceptance of the Moroccan autonomy plan for the Sahara Western.
Among those details is also the bill for the work in the Chinatown passage: it will be entirely in charge of Spain, and with the support of European funds. It is, according to local National Police sources, “the worst border post in Europe & rdquor;. The smallest and most unprotected of the accesses to the city is sloping down a lateral slope, and with a corridor so narrow that a man can hardly fit. A lathe today fixed closes the route. In that funnel and against that lathe More than 500 migrants crowded in the last, and tragic, attempted assault on the Melilla fence.
At the moment the position is closed. Morocco closed it with the pandemic and it has not been reopened, since the reform works of the African borders that the Government has underway are not finished. In a climate of new understanding with Morocco, Interior projects a highly technical border in Ceuta and Melilla. So far -and given the influx of vacationers from Operation Crossing the Strait- Morocco and Spain have only opened the Tarajal crossing in Ceuta and the Beni Enzar crossing in Melilla, the two main ones.
face identification
Sources close to the works point out that among the possible options for the passage of Chinatown is a long-term closure, but not without equipping the post with the anti-climb fences and inverted combs which already has the rest of the perimeter. In fact, the organized avalanche of migrants on June 24 chose that point because it was the only one yet to be reinforced.
The Interior wants all the crossings between Spain and Morocco to have two modern surveillance systems in security corridors: the facial identification and annotation of biometric data. That is not possible in the old building in Chinatown, which dates from 1988 and was punctually renovated in 2015.
On January 18, 2019, the Council of Ministers agreed to fix the fences of Ceuta and Melilla and “the security systems incorporated into them”, which “present a significant degree of obsolescence and deterioration & rdquor;. On November 5, 2019, the first phase of the “modernization of the land border protection system” was contracted. On July 19, the Government approved the last phase in Ceuta. Still to finish in Melilla.
They are going €50 million. The works are carried out under order of discretion with companies that, before agreeing to the contract, must get a security clearance from the Interior. The main one is the public Tragsa.
Orders and their documentation are reserved. On September 23, 2020, the Interior limited the information due to “the probability that criminal networks could take advantage of the execution of the reinforcement and modernization works of the border perimeter to facilitate planned and organized entrances”says a resolution issued that day. A year and a half later this suspicion was painfully confirmed.
police ties
On the 11th, the DGST (Moroccan Information Service) arrested a 36-year-old Daesh member in Tetouan who was preparing to kill. Only a week had passed since, with Moroccan help, the Spanish police neutralized the return of two Al Qaeda fighters, also Moroccan, from Syria to Mataró and Madrid.
The antiterrorist collaboration is in a sweet moment. “In the diplomatic crisis it was not interrupted, only there were no photos & rdquor ;, explains a source from the Interior. Now the partnership is more public.
When the Moroccans completed the capture of the jihadist in Tetouan, the director general of the National Police, Francisco Pardo Piquerashas just said goodbye to his DGST counterpart, Abdellatif Hammouchi. Twenty-four hours earlier, Pardo Piqueras had led a visit with four high-ranking Spanish officials: the General Information Commissioner, Eugene Pereiro; the Judicial Police, Rafael Perez; the foreigner, Juan Enrique Tabordaand the head of International Cooperation, alice bad.
The visit, widely publicized by the Moroccan press and little commented on this side of the Strait, allows us to predict a reinforcement this fall in the anti-jihadist grip of Spain and Morocco. “But it is not only terrorism: organized crime is equally concerned” indicates the same source as Interior.
Saharawi wink
This cascade of details of proximity to Rabat is completed with what Morocco may perhaps consider the main one: a new nod from the administration Sanchez to the Saharawi plan of Mohammed VI.
The Saharahuis Movement for Peace (MSP) has announced that it will hold a congress in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria at the turn of the summer. The meeting does not yet have a fixed date, although its promoters intend it to be before the UN pronounces itself again on Western Sahara in October.
Related news
There is no date but there is a list of attendees. Joseph Bonoformer socialist defense minister and former president of Congress, has confirmed to this newspaper your intention to attend; “Although I don’t know if I can & rdquor ;, he points out. Among the attendees, the MSP has also pointed out the former president Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and former Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos.
The MSP is the pro-American and Moroccan-inspired alternative to the Polisario Front, and accepts the Rabat autonomy plan. Hosting your meeting on Spanish soil, and with the participation of some high-ranking active socialist official, has every chance of further cool relations with Algeria.