The first 16 migrants deported by Italy land in Albania. international

Italian military ship pound It arrived at the port of Shengjin in Albania at 8 a.m., and shortly after, at 9:39 a.m., the 16 migrants rescued Monday in the Mediterranean Sea began to disembark. They landed in groups of four and in just 15 minutes they were all on the ground. They will be the first people to be held in a new detention center built by Italy in the Balkan country, following a controversial agreement signed with the Tirana government in 2023. Military ship docks above fishing boats in the small harbor of this tourist beach town and hotels. Albanian authorities do not allow the press to get close to the ship, which is 200 meters away.

He pound It is delimited by a wall and with barracks on the dock in front of the Italian-built reception and identification centre, where the medical examinations of 16 deportees (10 Bengalis and 6 Egyptians) will be carried out. They will then be able to make their asylum request right there and a 48-hour period will begin for a judge in Rome to validate or reject the request, starting an expedited management process with the retention of the affected person, as Italy does its own. Used to be. For use in Albania. This is a contested process and full of unknowns, as the judge may refuse to grant permission. In fact, this is what the courts of Palermo and Catania are doing in 90% of cases. The judicial issue is the real litmus test for the Italian government to check whether this new system can work in Albania. The European Union is also very cautious, because the European Commission is considering expanding it and takes it as an experiment.

Many questions remain to be answered, one of which is what will happen if the judge rejects the request for speedy processing of these 16 people. In theory, they should be transferred to Italy, because they cannot stay in Albania and it would be a ridiculous endeavour. The cost of transporting them to Albania is estimated at 18,000 euros per person. The cost of the center in Albania is €800 million over five years.

The key to denying or accepting a request for expedited processing is a recent ruling by the European Court of Justice, which has reduced the number of countries from 22 to 7 whose citizens are considered safe, with Italy implementing this rapid asylum processing and retention system. Could apply, and if it’s a case of expulsion, at the border. This is the pillar on which the entire protocol drawn up in Albania is based, and if it fails, it could collapse. And the fact is that this decision has excluded from the process all the main countries of origin of migrants arriving in Italy via the Mediterranean Sea, such as Bangladesh, Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. On this first Italian ship that has just arrived in Shengjin, migrants are from Bangladesh and Egypt. Of the only seven countries deemed safe by the European Court, only one African country, Cape Verde, has very few arrivals, and the rest are Balkan, including, paradoxically, Albania.

The 16 migrants, after completing the first arrival process at the Shengjin centre, where there are no beds and is transit only, will be transferred by buses to a larger detention center in Gazader, 23 kilometers away. It is a large Italian prison on Italian soil, outside the European Union. Prisoners cannot go out from there. Its capacity is one thousand seats. This is where deported immigrants will be detained awaiting resolution of their files. Theoretically, according to this accelerated process, this should happen in 28 days. Then, if their asylum request is rejected, they will have to be sent back home, it is not yet clear how. It is not known whether they will have to leave Albania by plane or boat, or whether they will have to travel to Italy before that.