Morocco to maintain flight ban with Spain over Covid-19 checks laxity

Morocco has decided to maintain all passenger links with Spain halted, citing a laxity by Spanish authorities in testing and checking people before they board.

“Spanish authorities fell short of taking serious action to monitor the health of passengers in its airports,” the health ministry had said in a statement deploring what it described as a laxism that could pose a real risk for Moroccans’ health.

Morocco has taken a series of precautionary measures to contain the virus outbreak including a flight ban since November 29 and the imposition of the vaccine pass for access to public places.

It has also rolled out a mass vaccination campaign that has benefited so far nearly 25 million people.

Spain showed some resentment after the health ministry’s statement and its foreign minister Jose Manuel Albares summoned Morocco’s chargé d’affaires to complain.

Albares said the statement “did not reflect reality” and that Spain “spares no effort to counter the pandemic.”

Morocco’s ambassador has not yet returned to Spain since the build-up of a diplomatic crisis due to the connivance of Madrid with Algiers and its Polisario proxies.

Spain had admitted Polisario leader last April under a false identity and without informing Rabat triggering a diplomatic crisis and a judicial procedure that cost the position of the former foreign minister who green lighted this fraudulent maneuver on Morocco’s back.

Morocco had asked Spain to offer a clear-cut position on the Sahara issue and refrain from ambiguity regarding its territorial integrity.