An Italian military ship docked today in the Albanian port of Shengjin with eight migrants who will be prosecuted because they were intercepted in international waters, one month after the first group was returned because they did not pass the verification process.
It is only the second transfer of migrants since the two centers for processing asylum requests in Albania began operating in October, according to the agreement of the Albanian and Italian governments based on a five-year contract between the two countries to resettle in Albania 3.000 migrants each month who are picked up from the sea by the Italian coast guard.
The idea is that in these centers it is decided whether the migrants will receive the requested asylum in Italy or whether they will be returned to their countries.
According to the plan, Italy has accepted to receive migrants who are granted asylum, while those whose applications are rejected are deported to their countries directly from Albania.
The same ship transferred the first 16 migrants from Bangladesh and Egypt to Albania in October. Four were taken to Italy on the same day because they are minors or have health problems.
The other 12 were returned to Italy three days later after Roman judges threw out their detention conditions, ruling that their countries of origin Bangladesh and Egypt were not safe enough to be returned to.
The Italian navy ship Libra left the island of Lampedusa on Wednesday with eight men aboard, according to Italian media reports. A spokesman for Italy's interior ministry confirmed that the ship was headed to Albania, but declined to provide further information until the operation was completed.
Italian media reported that of the 1.200 migrants who arrived in Lampedusa in the past two days, only eight adult men traveling without family met the criteria to go to Albania, including coming from countries deemed "safe" for their return.
The number of people arriving in Italy via the migrant route in the central Mediterranean, mainly from Bangladesh, Syria, Tunisia and Egypt, fell by 60 percent in 2024 compared to 2023. According to the Italian Ministry of the Interior, by November 7, 57.767 migrants had arrived by sea this year.
The decision by the court in Rome shortened the list of countries considered safe under the law, meaning that Rome can send back migrants from those countries who are not granted asylum using a fast-track procedure.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni condemned the court's previous decision and said that declaring countries such as Bangladesh and Egypt unsafe means that virtually all migrants would be ineligible for the Albanian program, which would make the program unable to function at all.
On October 21, Italy's far-right government approved a new decree aimed at overcoming legal obstacles that risked stalling the five-year plan to transfer migrants to Albania. The plan was signed in 2023 by Meloni and Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama.
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