The absence of official acts has marked the beginning of the Annual Disaster’s centenary, military defeat during the Rif war that ended the lives of more than 10,000 Spanish soldiers -10,973, according to the ‘File Picasso’- in little more than two
Weeks at 60 kilometers of straight line Melilla.

In the absence of the government of the government of the Autonomous City, also of the Central, the Popular Party and Vox decided to honor the dead with two acts before the pantheon of the Heroes of the Purísima cemetery of the Melillense city.
However, the brief manifesto and the floral offering provided had to be left at the doors of the crypt at the lack of authorization of the General Command of Melilla.
The same episode happened the previous week during the visit to Melilla of the opposition leader, Pablo Married, a place that has been allowed access on January 2, 2019.

“The City Government has not moved a finger to celebrate the centenary, so we went to ask for permission from the General Command of Melilla and was negatively surprised that it was not allowed to access the Pantheon, when all day there are guided tours and
We had been a host of times, “he declares this newspaper Juan José Imbroda, president of the Autonomous City for 19 years, current leader of the PP at the Melilla and Senator Assembly.

Imboda recalls that the tribute in the city is of double importance: the disaster itself and the one known as Socorilla to Melilla, the relentless siege of the Rifers led by Abd El-Krim to the city during the days after the Legion, some
Tired hosts that traveled 100 kilometers on foot to forced marches.
“It is the first time that sectarian policy is made with the victims of Annual,” says Imbroda, which brings the refusal to the lack of autonomous government and the plant.
“They did not give reasons: they told us that it is not accessed and point,” he says.

The world has had access to the exchange of messages between the Popular Party Manager and the Command in Melilla in which the latter communicates that “after raising its requests for our chain of command, we have just reported by the non-authorization for those visits to the
Cited pantheon “, without specifying the reason.
“It is the Ministry of Defense that has had to say that no, the Command has only had to cross the messages up,” the popular leader exposes.

Fadela Mohatar Maanán, a popular deputy at the Assembly of Melilla, vindicates that the fallen “also gave his life for the territorial integrity of Melilla” and that “is not understandable that they do not let us hold such a normal thing.”
In addition, she ensures that “that does not run the danger of Atapuerca, the crypt opens for guided tours every day and there is no danger with the safeguard and protection of the Command”.

However, there were a series of acts foreseen by the Senior Staff before the pandemic.
A circular March 2019 (Circular 03/2019 of the centennial issued by EME) contemplated the celebration of the ephemeride within the framework of an intense plan with 159 activities scheduled by the centenary, also, of the Foundation of the Legion in all its
Thirds and military units.
Finally, almost everything has been reduced to the act held in Viator (Almeria), a base of the “John of Austria”, 3rd of the Legion, last September 20.
A ceremony chaired by King Felipe VI, the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, and the head of the Army Staff, General Francisco Javier Varela Rooms.

The Circular contemplated the commemoration of Relief to Melilla with an act in Ronda, with the civic-military race of 101 kilometers of the legion that inspires the gesture;
And with the closing of the centenary with another act in June, this time, in the city of Melilla and its siege, “commemorating the heroic fact of Terrero Event”.
Submitted in a diplomatic crisis, neither the Spanish Government nor the Moroccan has planned on your agenda to remember the disaster of Annual.