Rabat – The Algerian Committee for the Opening of the Alerian-Moroccan Land Border has fulfilled its commitment to hold a peaceful sit-in to urge both the Moroccan and Algerian governments to reopen the border between the two countries.
On August 13, a group of activists held a sit-in at the Colonel Lotfi Border, condemning the continuous closure of the border between Rabat and Algiers.
One of the activists said that it is necessary for the two countries to reopen the border for the people.
The activist said, “We arrived here at the Colonel Lotfi Border to say in one voice that it is a must to open the border between Morocco and Algeria.”
“There is no political, moral or historical justification for closing the border for decades. Today there are two peoples who should be saved from gangs’ rule. Today, we are asking with a loud voice that these borders must be for our Moroccan brothers,” the activist added.
The activist concluded his statement, saying “long Live Algeria, long live Morocco, long live the peoples of both countries.
The border between the two countries has been closed since 1994 after Rabat imposed visa regulations on Algerian citizens. Rabat’s decision came following a terrorist attack on the Atlas Asni Hotel in Marrakech.
Lawyer Fatima Ezzahra, one of the activists who attended the peaceful sit-in, said that the protest aims to remove the security barrier implemented at the border of the two countries to become one people “as what we have always been.”
The Algerian committee’s call for a peaceful sit-in came after King Mohammed VI renewed his call for more dialogue with Algeria in his Throne Day speech on July 29.
In the speech, the King said that Morocco will continue its commitment to the “policy of the outstretched hand towards our Algerian brothers, out of loyalty to the bonds of rooted in brotherhood, religion, language, and good-neighborliness that have always existed between the peoples of the two sister nations.”
There is speculation that Algeria has started to study the possibility of reopening the border with Morocco. Earlier this month, Independent Arabia quoted a source, who said that Algerian sovereign authority” is consulting with academies on the reopening of closed land border with Morocco. The authority ordered a study to discuss the “most effective way to open land border.”
