The parade of the Spanish Armed Forces in Melilla, just 2 kilometers from Morocco

@DefAviation ES 5·26·2024 · 21:47 0

This week Spain celebrated its Armed Forces Day, a day that is very special in the city of Melilla.

The best images of the central events of the Spanish Armed Forces Day
The military contingent of Melilla shows its means to defend that Spanish city

With almost 85,000 inhabitants, Melilla is one of the Spanish cities with the highest proportion of military population, something that is explained by its proximity to Morocco. Like Ceuta, Melilla is in North Africa and has belonged to Spain for hundreds of years, but the Moroccan kingdom has been claiming it as its own without any rights, in addition to periodically launching waves of illegal immigrants against its fences, in a form of hybrid war very similar to the one that Belarus has been carrying out against Poland and Lithuania for two years.

Yesterday, as is traditional, Melilla celebrated Armed Forces Day with a parade along Avenida de Juan Carlos I, which comes close to approximately 2,200 meters from the border with Morocco. For the citizens of Melilla, the presence of the Armed Forces is a guarantee of defense of the Spanish sovereignty of that city, and in fact this presence would imply that any attack on Melilla would activate the Article 4 of the NATO Treaty.

This Saturday's parade brought together most of the units within the General Command of Melilla (COMGEMEL) of the Army: its Headquarters Battalion, the Melilla Regular Group nº52 (GREG 52 ), the Cavalry Regiment "Alcántara" No. 10 (with its Leopard 2A4 battle tanks and ASCOD Pizarro infantry combat vehicles), the Mixed Artillery Regiment No. 32 (RAMIX 32), the Engineer Regiment No. 8 and Logistics Unit No. 24 (ULOG 24).

The great absentee in this parade was the Tercio "Gran Capitán" 1st of the Legion, which did not participate in these events since yesterday it paraded in the central events of the Armed Forces Day in Oviedo.

These first photos that you have just seen are from @Merchedemelilla and were published yesterday by COMGEMEL. In addition, Merche de Melilla has published this video of GREG 52< /a> singing the beautiful "Hymno de Regulares" during the parade:

Día de las Fuerzas Armadas en #Melilla #Difas2024 pic.twitter.com/p1wfjex9G6

— Merche Melilla (@Merchedemelilla) May 26, 2024

The parade in Melilla was led by a squad of spenders from the Compañía de Mar de Melilla, which is the oldest military unit in Spain over time. This Army unit has the peculiar characteristic of using uniforms like those of the Navy. It is currently integrated into Logistics Unit No. 24.

In addition to the parade, a solemn lowering of the National Flag was held (another raising ceremony had been held in the morning) in which a representation of the Royal Guard participated, as we see in these photos published by COMGEMEL.

The lowering of Bandera was accompanied by artillery salvos, fired by the Field Artillery Group I/32 of RAMIX 32 with its 105 mm OTO-Melara Mod 56 howitzers:

Los artilleros del #RAMIX32 realizan las salvas de ordenanza, desde Melilla la Vieja, durante el arriado de la Enseña Nacional en la plaza de España por el #DIFAS2024@COMGEMEL_ET @MCANA_ET pic.twitter.com/t8Mk1tENr3

— Comandancia General de Melilla (@COMGEMEL_ET) May 25, 2024

You can see here a complete video of the parade published by Melilla Hoy TV< /a>:

Main photo: Merche Melilla / COMGEMEL.