Friday, March 29, 2024 | Ramadan 18, 1445 H
clear sky
weather
OMAN
25°C / 25°C
EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Moroccans eye Spanish enclave across tiny border

minus
plus

It’s one of the shortest land borders in the world: a few dozen metres of plastic cord across a sandbank separate Morocco from the tiny Spanish enclave of Penon de Velez de la Gomera.


“Don’t approach the string,” a Moroccan soldier shouted from a pillbox, his helmet askew.


“They might shoot you with plastic bullets,” he said.


Penon de Velez de la Gomera is one of seven Spanish enclaves on the northern coast of Morocco, which claims sovereignty over all of them.


But a string of islets remain under Spanish control.


These tiny leftovers of Spain’s once vast empire have been a source of tension between Morocco and its former colonial occupier.


One of them, Perejil was at the heart of an angry spat between the two countries 15 years ago.


A handful of Moroccan soldiers briefly took over the outcrop just 200 metres off the coast. The incident ended with a bloodless intervention by Spanish commandos.


But today, the topic of Madrid’s enclaves receives little attention.


“Here we don’t have any real problem with the Spaniards, even though it’s as if our village is occupied,” said Hamed Aharouch, 27.


Aharouch sat on a plastic chair outside his fisherman’s hut in the hamlet of Bades, a stone’s throw from the Spanish base.


The Spanish peninsula, 87 metres at its highest point, dominates the bay, an enchanting cove of blue waters hemmed in by rocky slopes.


Once separated from the mainland by a narrow strip of water, Penon is now linked by an isthmus of grey sand.


“It seems the Spaniards want to put up a fence in place of the string,” said Aharouch. “We don’t agree to that — it would be oppression. Already we can’t approach.”


In August 2012, a group of Moroccan activists climbed onto the rock, and were chased away by Spanish soldiers. The incident went no further.


“The Spaniards threaten us with their weapons,” grumbled Ali El Guedouch, 55.


“I used to fish on the rock — today that’s impossible,” he said.


It is hard to imagine today, but Bades was historically an active port, a point of passage between Europe and the Moroccan imperial capital of Fes.


According to the fishermen, their main problem is isolation.


“We have become destitute. We survive just on fishing,” said El Guedouch.


“It’s as if we’re neither in Morocco nor in Spain.” — AFP


Herve Bar


SHARE ARTICLE
arrow up
home icon