The Delegate of the Government, Sabrina Moh, has announced that, thanks to the negotiations with Morocco, the habilitation of a second lane on the border of Beni-Inicio for the transit of Melilla citizens has been achieved.
The head of the Government Delegation in Melilla has recalled that all the lanes on the Spanish side are open and with all the professionals of the State Security Forces and Corps necessary to be able to respond to the demands of the Melilla citizens. “We didn’t take long to do the checks. We pass the verifiers immediately, effectively,” he explained.
In fact, he denied that there is a lack of fluidity on the Spanish side, since, if so, once the Spanish part of the border has been crossed, we would find that, on the Moroccan side, the vehicle lanes would be empty and that is not the case.
“We have all the lanes enabled. Morocco has three lanes authorized for the OPE and one for the citizenship of Melilla. What I do is negotiate with the Moroccan side and we have managed to open a second lane for the citizens of Melilla”, he reported.
“They – he pointed out in reference to the Moroccan authorities – told us that they were going to enable three OPE lanes to respond to the people who arrive from the ships because it is not the same the control and controls that the Melillense citizens have to pass than the OPE citizens, who have to do the whole issue of documentation and a series of actions that the residents must not do”.
“I suppose, because I have not made that decision, that the neighboring country inhabits more lanes for OPE passengers given the difficulty of these controls,” he said, while recalling that these citizens do not have any preference or priority and that they are also suffering long waits.
In any case, Moh has conveyed all his affection to the citizens of Melilla who have had to suffer waiting at the border and has made it clear that the objective of the Delegation is always to facilitate transit. However, it has reported the large influx of people who have transited, given that there have been 20,000 people who have crossed the border of Beni-Onset in the last three days.
Protests in Morocco
Regarding yesterday’s protest in Beni-Encirclement, the Delegate explained that, despite the fact that no permit had been requested for the rally, it was authorized because “we understand that citizens want more fluidity when transiting to the neighboring country.”
However, since the arrests do not take place because of controls on the Spanish side, Moh has invited Amin Azmani to call for such protests across the border. “I strongly urge Azmani to cross the Beni-Onset border and sit on the road and also make those protests on the other side and pass on his requests for more fluidity to the Government of Morocco,” he said.
To questions from the press about the possibility of opening the Farhana border post, the Delegate explained that the smart border is being implemented, with the verifiers at the Beni-Start crossing, something that Farhana lacks. “There are technical issues that make it impossible for the Farhana border crossing to be opened right now,” he said.
With regard to Beni-Start, Moh has investigated that the intelligent border has several phases, the final phase of which is the opening itself, something for which, the works that are being undertaken are very advanced and whose implementation will be a reality “in a short time”. However, “we already have an initiated phase with the issue of verification working for documentation,” he added.