Gibraltar Border Queues Return as Tension Mounts

Drivers fumed in hours-long queues Tuesday to cross into the tiny British outpost of Gibraltar from Spain as tensions mounted between Madrid and London over the disputed territory.

"At present the incoming queuing time is over three hours. All documents being checked," the Royal Gibraltar Police said in a Twitter message.

Many people parked their cars on the Spanish side of the border and decided to walk across the border, carrying their luggage or briefcases in their hands to escape the tailback of cars waiting to pass the exhaustive checks imposed by Spanish authorities.

"This has happened to me several times, at least six or seven times" in recent days, said Francis Perez, a 30-year-old unemployed construction worker who waited for an hour and a half to cross the border into Gibraltar with his family.

Perez is from Madina Cidonia, a Spanish city located about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Gibraltar, and like many area residents he heads to the British outpost to buy fuel for his car and tobacco because taxes there are lower.

"It's horrible to have to spend hours to get in and out of Gibraltar. Today it's not too hot but there are other days when it was unbearable. It's all just politics," he said, as his car crept ahead.

Britain and Spain are embroiled in an escalating diplomatic row over stringent car searches imposed since the end of July by Spanish guards at the Gibraltar border, which have regularly caused delays of several hours.

Gibraltar has accused Madrid of imposing the checks in retaliation for its decision to drop concrete blocks into the sea to create a reef for fish at the mouth of the Mediterranean.

Madrid claims the border checks are necessary to combat smuggling and that the reef is a deliberate impediment to Spanish fishing vessels in a dispute over territorial waters.

Britain on Monday threatened to take legal action over the checks on the border of the rocky outpost on Spain's south coast while Spain said it was considering taking the dispute to global bodies such as the United Nations and the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

About 10,000 Spaniards cross the frontier each day to work in the self-governing British overseas territory which measures just 6.8 square kilometers (2.6 square miles) and is home to about 30,000 people.