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ARCHIVED - Murcia regional president wants army and more police to enforce border restrictions
It’s an open secret that local police are finding it impossible to monitor local borders
The President of the Murcian regional Government, Fernando López Miras, has called for more resources to help the regional government enforce the border restrictions that it has implemented in order to control the coronavirus pandemic, even bringing in the army if necessary to control movement.
The president says that he considers it "important" that all the personnel of the Civil Guard, the National Police and even the Armed Forces be used if necessary in order to guarantee that the essential sanitary measures are met to control the pandemic," and has asked the Government Delegate to the region, who controls the Guardia Civíl and national police, to provide further resources to enforce the measures decreed by the regional government.
The regional government itself does not have the mandate to control the traffic police or "bring in the army"; these are the competence of the national government, and local police are funded and run by each local council, so although the regional government has decreed that borders must be closed, it actually lacks the manpower to enforce this.
López Miras recognizes that some municipal mayors of the Region have complained in videoconferences and in the regional media that they are finding it impossible to police the perimeter controls of their municipalities. "It is logical that, with their local police staff, they do not have enough personnel to carry out these perimeter controls," he admitted.
It's an open secret that although residents are not supposed to be moving around between the 45 local municipalities within the region, that there is in reality very little chance of actually encountering a roadblock or a police patrol should residents cross from one municipality to another, certainly during the week.
This does make something of a mockery of the rules, and although many residents accept that the need to control the spread of the virus does exist, it is hard to understand why it is necessary to shop at a local market within the municipality, which may require a 20km drive, instead of using the most local market which may only be 1 km up the road in a neighbouring municipality; after all, covid doesn´t know which municipality a shopper is in!
It’s absolutely understandable that the population should be prevented from travelling to holiday homes or making journeys outside of the region, but when there are still flights landing at the airport and non-residents travelling to holiday homes are reaching them without even being stopped in spite of the restrictions, it does seem pointless to prevent residents from shopping in their nearest shops.
At the weekend there are visibly police patrols preventing "weekenders" from travelling from the cities to holiday homes on the coast, and in some areas roadblocks are checking papers close to major markets, but otherwise there is very little evidence of the measures being enforced.
López Miras acknowledges that the situation is "very complicated, in the Region of Murcia and in Spain, as we are seeing, as well as at European level." And, he adds, "we are immersed in this second wave which is hitting us harder than the first."
"As the sanitary experts in epidemiology and Public Health have been telling us since the beginning of this pandemic, we must wait at least two weeks to see the effect of the measures and see if they work or not," he stressed.