2008/01/17

Melilla

We arrived to Melilla by 8AM. Melilla is a Spanish enclave in Morocco. Moroccans demand the territory back each week. we could organize a joint give us back Transylvania and Melilla demonstration sometime. The town is lovely, there is a castle in it and churches and cafés.


Near the border approx. 500 Moroccans are waiting to get the permission to enter, most of them are female, in an uncertain age, big, wears a scarf, and amorf. 25 years old or 45? They have huge bags in front of them, things they bought on the Spanish side. There1s a lot of toilet paper, gas cooker and corn flakes among their stuff. Apparently they are either short of these things back in Morocco or too expensive.


On the Spanish side of the border suddenly 2 officers appear and start shouting with the women and kick them in the stomach and kick the bags out of their hands. The women don’t seem to be surprised, slowly they move away, the mass starts to clear away, we try to take photos, but immediately 10 officers shout don’t even try it.


It takes them a moment to let us through, but the Moroccans hold us up. Some of them approach us that for a couple of Euro bribe they take us through quickly. We don’t accept their offer, we won’t pay bribes nowhere, we rather wait.


Next to us in a narrow corridor, which is the channel between the market in Melilla and Morocco the women with the heavy bags are crossing the border. It’s very crowded and there’s a lot of pushing and shouting going on. In the mud sea in front of the wall the women are queuing and slowly crossing. A Moroccan officer appears and turns them back, half of the women start to go backwards, but another queue turns up. The turned back queue turns around, mixes with the new queue and they proceed towards the Moroccan border. Two little boy try to jump in from a 5 m high wall, but they get caught in the last minute. The border between Austria and Hungary would look the same if the old regime stays and Austrians create a corridor between Pandorf and Hegyeshalom.


We wait fro an hour here. We fill out 200 papers, officers come on the bus 10 times for checking and off we go.

No comments: