Protesters in Albania have vented their fury over the arrival of immigrants from Italy, denouncing the move as “undemocratic” and contravening human rights.
An Italian naval ship brought the first batch of 16 male migrants to Shengjin on Wednesday, as a part of a deal brokered by Rome with Tirana to process refugee applications in Albania.
The group was made up of 10 Bangladeshis and six Egyptians – just some of the tens of thousands of migrants who have arrived in Italy over the past few years.
The men will be initially screened at a centre in Shengjin, before being transferred to a base 22 kilometres to its east near the former military airport in Gjader, while they await the outcome of their applications.
Only adult men will be processed in Albania, according to authorities in Rome.
Women, children, the elderly, and those who are ill or victims of torture will be accommodated in Italy.
Officials have also said families will not be split up during the application process.
Those who are granted asylum will be able to return to Italy, otherwise they will deported directly from Albania.
The five-year deal was signed last November by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her Albanian counterpart, Edi Rama.
Under its terms, up to 3,000 migrants rescued by the Italian coast guard in international waters each month will be accommodated in Albania.
The first batch of migrants was met by a group of protesters, who unfurled a banner saying: “The European dream ends here.”
The demonstrators say the deal is both immoral and illegal, as well as being arbitrary.
“This deal is against human rights; more concretely, it’s about the migrants’ rights,” Edison Lika told the website euronews.com
“Such a deal has not been democratic because the peoples of both countries have not been asked.”
However, Italy’s prime minister insists her deal is an innovative solution to the immigration crisis sweeping Europe in recent years and has the support of several over EU countries.
It come as the number of migrants arriving in Italy decreased by 61 percent in 2024 from the previous year.
The Italian deal with Albania has been widely compared to the Rwanda scheme planned by the last Conservative government and scrapped by new UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
