25 October 2021
The Buffalo Post
Running Story…
Europe’s border wars
Why French elections are always a bit of a gamble…
Melilla’s wall on the border with Morocco…
Melilla, Sunday,
Everyone knows about Trump’s
wall between the United States
and Mexico designed to keep our
the hordes of migrants.
The price-tag for President
Trump's border wall topped $11
billion — or nearly $20 million a
mile — to become the most
expensive wall of its kind
anywhere in the world and may
well have brought Trump’s
presidency to an early end. But
not so many people know that
the European Union too has
increasingly resorted to walls
and fences to keep out waves of
migrants and refugees alike.
But then, in May this year, up to
10,000 people surged across the
the European Union's only land
borders with Africa - yes there is
one! Moroccan border into
Spain's Ceuta exclave- and even
now, many hundreds are still
here, mostly children, posing a
quandary for the tiny territory.
Some distance away lies another
Spanish town of the African
continent. Melilla, fell as a Berber
town to Spain in 1497 and
remained Spanish despite a long
history of sieges and was the town
that precipitated the Spanish civil
war Today, a double fence lined
with razor wire surrounds the
exclave to keep immigrants, mainly
African refugees, from entering.
Nonetheless, 200 migrants climbed
Melilla’s imposing fence to enter
Spain.
In reaction to all this, Santiago
Abascal, the leader of the Spanish
far right Vox party wants to build
an even larger wall to stop
immigrants – and he wants
Morocco to pay for it. Echoing
Trump, Abascal even argues that as
Morocco “sends waves of
immigrants across the border”, it
should pay for the wall.
On the EU’s Eastern flank,
Hungary's prime minister has asked
the European Union to pay half the
cost of anti-migrant fences it built
on its southern borders - 440€
million.
Hungary originally made it a point
of pride that it had had paid for
nearly all the costs of the fences
and promoted a "Let's Stop
Brussels" billboard campaign
rejecting the EU's migration
policies.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the
European landmass, an international
frontier called the Calais border
barrier is under construction jointly
by France and the United
Kingdom. It aims, to prevent
migrants from entering Britain by
stowing away on trucks and ferries.
A wall will cut the large migrant
encampment known as the Calais
Jungle off from access to the port
and tunnel.
In terms of today's geopolitics, walls
are much in vogue and there are
now at least 60 around the world.
Israel's wall on the West Bank ranks
as the second most expensive — at
between $1 million to $5 million a
mile. It seems that it's not just
Trump who believes that high walls
make for good neighbours.
The 80 meter hard border
The shortest international border in the
world is the one that separates mainland
Morocco from Spanish ‘Peñón de Vélez
de la Gomera’ which is made of two
small rocks inhabited only by the Spanish
military. Although the rock is only
connected to the continent by a beach,
nobody is allowed to cross the border.