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The Covid-19 pandemic closed the only land border between Africa and Europe, and with it the doors of sustenance for the thousands of Moroccans who work in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta and Melilla, who are impatiently awaiting its reopening after being threatened by the “displacement” or “begging”, as they say.
For 18 years, the 43-year-old Fadwa used to cross the border crossing every day from the northern Moroccan town of Fnideq to Ceuta, where she works as a housekeeper, to support a family of six, including her unemployed husband. But he suddenly lost his income due to the border closure in mid-March. March to respond to the spread of the Covid-19 epidemic.
“I have no choice but to beg in the street if the borders are not opened, to go back to work. Now everyone is living with Corona and going back to work except us. The authorities cannot be more cruel than the epidemic,” she says desperately.
And he adds: “For me, Corona is more merciful than poverty.”
It is enough to obtain a work card in Ceuta or Melilla to travel to them from neighboring cities and towns in Morocco, through border corridors that are usually full of constant movement. Thousands of people traveled with this card.
Today, the border crossing appears completely empty except for the security men guarding its gated entrance with an iron barrier.
The calm extends through the main street of the city and its attractive beaches, which usually witness a strong tourist influx in summer.
– At the gates of homelessness –
The general secretary of the Moroccan Workers ‘and Workers’ Union in Ceuta, Chakib Marawan, estimates that the number of people who have stopped working due to the closure of the borders at more than three thousand, while the number is close to five thousand for workers from the Melilla enclave to the east, according to a union leader from the neighboring city of Nador.
They work in particular in tourism or in domestic service, as well as artisans and workers in factories or shops, according to Marwan, who points to their contribution to bring hard currency to Morocco, where they spend their wages.
While official estimates indicate that the economic repercussions of the Covid-19 crisis threaten around one million Moroccans with falling into poverty, the rate of people at risk of poverty is close to around 20 percent of the population. of the country of 35 million.
While nearly six million families whose breadwinners stopped working due to quarantine benefited from temporary financial support within three months, most of those who were left without work in the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla did not receive no help from Morocco or Spain.
Marawan, 49, who has worked in a restaurant in Ceuta for 20 years, says: “I have not benefited from any support. I have lived by borrowing for six months and now I cannot find anyone to lend me. I am in the process. of being left homeless, unless borders are opened to support our children. “
And if the employers of some people showed an “understanding” of the exceptional situation, then a large number of these workers were “fired or threatened with dismissal”, according to testimony from trade unionists who tried to persuade the Moroccan authorities to return to them. open borders.
Among the stranded are retirees who have been prevented from spending their pensions in Ceuta since the borders were closed, and others who have been denied access to treatment or cannot afford it in Morocco.
– ‘Back swim’ –
Some of the repercussions of the crisis reached “divorce or depression”, according to Marwan, noting that others “preferred to remain trapped in Ceuta, away from their families to preserve their work. What is the use of being close to my children while I cannot provide them with anything? ” “.
When the borders were closed in March, hundreds of Moroccans were stranded in the two Spanish enclaves in difficult conditions, before their evacuation began in late May after numerous appeals and protests.
Today, however, those stranded on the other side of the border see no objection to continuing with their work and enduring the separation of their families until “God takes this plague away from us,” as Marwan puts it.
Samira, 33, continues to cry: “I am seriously thinking about going back to swimming in Ceuta, I have no other solution”, after losing all sources of income since she was forced to leave her job as a helper for the elderly in Ceuta , knowing that with his salary he supported his family. Besides her parents on Fnideq.
The closure of the borders due to the epidemic exacerbated the commercial and tourist stagnation in the region after three months of quarantine, noting that the region has also suffered since the end of last year the consequences of curbing the trade in contraband goods carried out by the porters. through a crossing that has been overlooked for a long time.
At the time, authorities promised to establish a commercial area that would provide alternatives to Fnideq’s, but works there are at a standstill.
Despite the resumption of domestic tourism, “we are still far from covering our losses,” says a hotel manager who offers a panoramic view of most of Ceuta’s buildings and the blue waters of the Mediterranean.
Morocco is expected to suffer an overall economic recession at a rate of 5.2 percent, the most severe in 24 years, due to the health crisis and the effects of the drought on the agricultural season. While he announced an ambitious economic recovery plan of almost $ 12 billion.
An official date to reopen the border has yet to be announced. Meanwhile, irregular migrants sometimes manage to climb the fence in Ceuta and Melilla, as the Spanish Civil Guard detained 300 immigrants in mid-August who were trying to cross this fence in an operation that left them dead and several injured.
The Council of Europe asked Spain this Thursday to improve the conditions for the sponsorship of the hundreds of immigrants gathered in the “crowded” bullfighting stadiums of Melilla in the face of the Covid-19 crisis.
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