The Diplomat
The Minister of Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, visited yesterday the special security and civil protection device deployed in the Port of Algeciras during the Operation Crossing the Strait 2023 (OPE-23).
According to data from the Ministry of Interior, the OPE, which runs from last June 15 until September 15, until this past Sunday have already recorded 1,876 movements of boats and the movement of 419,500 passengers and more than 101,000 vehicles.
Grande-Marlaska toured the facilities of the port of Cadiz, the one with the highest traffic of passengers and vehicles of the seven port facilities involved in the OPE during the summer period: Alicante, Almeria, Malaga, Motril, Tarifa and Valencia. Algeciras has registered 1,322 rotations of vessels, 70 percent of the total, and has transported 236,000 passengers, 56 percent of the trips, and more than 64,000 vehicles, 63 percent of the total.
The visit concluded with a brief meeting with the Consul General of Morocco in Algeciras, Mohamed Rafaoui, and with the representative of the Mohamed VI Foundation, which provides support to Moroccan citizens who make each year the passage of the Strait of Gibraltar.
The minister was accompanied during the tour, among other authorities, by the subdelegate of the Government in Cadiz, Jose Pacheco, the undersecretary of the Ministry of Interior, Isabel Goicoechea, the director general of Civil Protection and Emergencies, Francisco Ruiz Boada, and the president of the Port Authority Bay of Algeciras, Gerardo Landaluce.
Thousands of citizens of Maghrebi origin cross Spain every year to go to and return from their countries of origin during the summer period. The security arrangements for Operation Crossing the Strait 2023 were activated on June 15 and consist of 19,441 police officers, 21.4 percent more than in the OPE of 2022, the first one after two years of pandemic, in full recovery of bilateral diplomatic relations and in which more than three million North Africans transited through Spain.
