More than one million travelers crossed the strait between June 15 and July 25 as part of Operation Marhaba “Crossing the Strait 2022” coordinated by the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, which aims to manage the transit of citizens of North African origin between the peninsula and Morocco. .
And the Spanish website “diarioarea”, according to the data presented, reported that Algeciras is the city with the highest traffic, with 60% of passengers leaving Spain, and therefore remains the preferred city, followed by Almería ( 17%) and Tarifa (12%).
The same localization highlighted that, according to the destination of the travelers, the ports of Morocco, in particular the port of Tanger Med, receive 62% of the passengers of the peninsula, far ahead of the occupied cities of Ceuta (22%) and Melilla ( 13%).
The same source said that out of the total number of passengers, 937,532 departing passengers were heading to the African continent, which represents an increase of 8% compared to Operation Detroit 2019 – the last time it was organized. before the pandemic -.
The number of vehicles, according to the Spanish site, that crossed the Mediterranean Sea also increased to 225,278 vehicles, almost 15% more than the volume recorded in the same period of 2019.
The same website said that the Spanish Interior Ministry is coordinating the 33rd Strait Crossing Operation (Operation Welcome), which will continue until September 15, and in which government ports and the General Directorate of Commercial Shipping from the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda also participate; The General Directorate of Public Health at the Ministry of Health; And the Red Cross, among other institutions, noting that in total the special apparatus participates in more than 22,000 professionals, of whom regarding 16,000 are clients of state security agencies and agencies.
Abdul Samad Adendin