Karima got it. He has mimicked his role so much that he has fulfilled it at the foot of the script dictated from Rabat . With discretion. Without making much noise. Going unnoticed in front of the spotlights. The diplomacy and good temper of the daughter of Granada's Carmen and the former personal doctor of King Hassan II has helped to reconcile the past idyll between the Spanish socialists and the kingdom of Mohamed VI.

Karima Benyaich (58 years old) has been leading the Moroccan Embassy in Spain for a year . When he took office, in the midst of an unprecedented migration crisis, bilateral relations faltered. In Rabat, the idea of ​​Minister Marlaska to remove the concertinas from the Ceuta and Melilla fences was not very funny. Nor that his friends of the PSOE arrived in La Moncloa pushed by a party (We can) which they consider "pro saharaui". Nor that, while they did "dirty work" with immigrants, from Madrid , they washed their hands and made gestures like welcoming the Aquarius .

Today everything has changed. The concertinas are still where the Zapatero Government put them while promoting its Alliance of Civilizations and Morocco has built another longer fence with more blades next to the Ceuta fence. In Rabat they already have their pockets full after Spain mediated with the European Union to provide the neighboring country with a few million and means to combat irregular immigration to the Peninsula. Raids are growing in forests, camps and flats where immigrants await the opportunity to cross the Strait or the Alboran Sea . From the Moroccan Association of Human Rights they denounce that the auxiliary forces are "arresting all the sub-Saharan people they meet."

Many are brought down to the south and left lying in the middle of the desert. Others are locked in small cells inside an illegal detention center in Arekmane (20 kilometers from Melilla) and then deported to their countries. The Royal Air Maroc company continually charter planes to Cameroon or Senegal to return what the West does not want.

"The Hispanic-Moroccan cooperation is now impeccable in every way. It has cost Pedro Sánchez, but he has realized that he needs us more than he thought," says an authorized voice of the Moroccan Ministry of Interior. And he points to Ambassador Benyaich as one of those responsible. An example of his good diplomatic work was seen on July 30 during the Throne Party . This year celebrated the two decades of Mohammed VI's reign. And Benyaich prepared in his residence a celebration in style that was attended by more than 500 personalities of both kingdoms, including six ministers of the Government of Sanchez. The days before the event, the ambassador had already moved to fill the great newspapers of this country with complimentary articles towards the progress made in Morocco during the reign of Mohamed VI: they used their pen Pedro Sánchez, Zapatero, Miguel Ángel Moratinos ... even former president Mariano Rajoy did not spare praise.

During the party, the excellent relationship that the vice president, Carmen Calvo, has with Benyaich was expressed. He was also seen sharing confidences to Marlaska with the senior colonel of the Royal Gendarmerie, Ahmed Lemkhir . The minister congratulated the military for the efforts they are making to stop the arrival of immigrants to Spain. Although Marlaska has never wanted to know in detail what exactly the "efforts" of the neighboring country consist of.

On both banks, after the data on the reduction of arrivals of boats to Spain, those who work on the ground attending to immigrants put the focus on mass raids and that the Moroccan Royal Navy no longer ignores the departures of boats in its waters Maritime Rescue now only enters your area if your counterparts in the neighboring country request it.

Morocco has also tightened its fight against the mafias that traffic with immigrants. There are not so many toys (inflatable boats) with sub-Saharan as last summer. Now the main clients of these boats are Moroccans and, for the most part, minors. The links of the networks have left their main area of ​​operations ( Tangier ) and have moved to the other end of the country, settling around the city of Nador . The leadership has been taken by the leaders, installed in France , who continue to organize trips on demand for those who have more than 3,000 euros. That is why immigrants arrive at Spanish shelters with the same haste with which they leave.

Today, Spain and Morocco shake hands like good friends. But their relationships change with the same ease as the migratory flows that accompany them.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Spain
  • Morocco
  • Mohamed VI
  • Melilla
  • Ceuta
  • Pedro Sanchez
  • We can
  • European Union
  • Carmen Calvo
  • PSOE
  • France
  • Madrid
  • immigration
  • Refugees

Turn of the pageThe Portuguese letter of Sánchez

EditorialMohamed VI, a key partner for Spain

The fiasco of a whole trajectory