Suspension of this year’s ‘Crossing the Straits’ op due to C0vid-19 pandemic set to impact Costa Almeria port with €3.5 million losses

MOROCCO’S decision to call off this summer’s ‘Crossing the Straits’ operation due to the Covid-19 pandemic is set to leave Almeria Port with some €3.5 million losses, according to the Port Authority President Jesus Caicedo.
Last year more than 580,000 people used the port to travel between Almeria and Morocco, Algeria or the Spanish autonomous city of Melilla between mid-June and mid-September.
But on Tuesday the Moroccan Foreign Minister Naser Burita told the country’s Lower House of Parliament there is still no date for reopening his country’s borders and the special operation for European-based Moroccan nationals returning home for the summer holidays will not go ahead this year.
The Port Authority President told Spanish press that if Morocco’s frontiers remain closed there will obviously be no operation, but made the point that as and when they do reopen, North Africans will be catching ferries home, and said the port is “prepared.”
Ferry services between Almeria and Melilla have now resumed