These are Egyptian and Bengali citizens picked up off the coast of Lampedusa and taken directly onto the Libra ship. The asylum procedure, already started on board, will be completed in the new “hotspots” opened by Italy in Shëngjin and Gjadër.
The first 16 migrants intended for the two new centers for asylum seekers set up by Italy have started their return to Albania.
It is about Egyptian and Bengali nationals, all male and not being in a vulnerable situation, who were rescued at sea by the Italian Navy ship Libra.
These migrants were part of a thousand people who were heading towards the Sicilian island of Lampedusa or who had already landed there on Monday.
They should arrive this Wednesday in the Albanian port ofShengjinwhere they will be identified and subjected to a medical examination, but verification of the requirements of the new reception procedures has already started on board.
Those who are in good standing and who officially request asylum in Italy will be transferred to Gjader, twenty kilometers away, where a reception center, a repatriation center for those destined to be deported to their country of origin and a center for those who commit crimes have been set up inside the hotspot.
This is how the agreement signed in November 2023 by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and his Albanian counterpart Edi Rama begins.
“L‘Italy set a good example with the signing of the protocol signed with Albania, to process on Albanian territory, but under Italian and European jurisdiction, asylum requests”declared the Prime Minister this Tuesday in the Senate, during communications in preparation for the European Council of October 17 and 18.
“It is a new, courageous and unprecedented path, but which fully reflects the European spirit and which can also be borrowed with other non-European nations”added the Prime Minister, despite opposition from the opposition and several NGOs working with migrants.
“These are human beings who must be welcomed, registered and placed in reception centers built according to EU standards”declared Mr. Rama to the Italian daily La Stampa, “in safe and humanely correct conditions”added the Prime Minister of Albania, which has just opened accession negotiations to the EU on Tuesday.