Italy Meloni's government has formally opened two new migrant centers in Albania, where refugees will be sent after being intercepted in the Mediterranean, under a plan by Meloni's far-right government.
The Italian ambassador to Albania, Fabrizio Bucci, said that the two centers are ready to process the migrants, but he could not say when the first ones would arrive.
“As of today, both centers are ready and operational,” Bucci told journalists at the port of Shengjin, on Albania’s Adriatic coast, where the migrants will disembark.
The centers have the capacity to accommodate up to 400 illegal migrants, and this is expected to increase to 880 within a few weeks, according to Italian officials, speaking off the record.
The two controversial facilities will cost Italy around £560.7 million over five years, will be managed by Italy and are under Italian jurisdiction, while Albanian guards will provide external security.
This aerial photo shows the site of a recently built Italian-run migrant center in the port of Shengjin, Albania, on October 11.
The centers will be used to detain male migrants after they are processed after being intercepted in the Mediterranean.
The agreement, signed last November by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her Albanian counterpart Edi Rama, was harshly criticized by human rights groups.
An Italian Coast Guard ship carrying migrants rescued at sea passes between tourist boats, on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, Italy, September 18, 2023
The number of people arriving in Italy along the Central Mediterranean migration route from North Africa decreased by 61 percent in 2024 compared to 2023.
According to the Italian Ministry of the Interior, as of October 11, 52,425 migrants had arrived in Italy by sea this year, compared to 138,947 on the same date last year.
Under a five-year agreement signed last November by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her Albanian counterpart Edi Rama, up to 3,000 migrants collected monthly by the Italian coastguard in international waters will be sheltered in Albania.
They will initially be examined on board the ships that rescue them, before being sent to Albania for further screening.
The first center, an area in Shengjin, 66 km northwest of the capital Tirana, will be used to screen new arrivals.
Housing units, a small hospital, a detention center and offices at the port are surrounded by a 5-meter-high metal fence and topped with barbed wire.
The other center, about 22 kilometers to the east, near a former military airport in Gjader, will accommodate migrants while their asylum applications are processed on a site measuring about 17 acres.
The ambassador said Gjader was the challenge that caused all the delay.
The centers will only accommodate adult men, while vulnerable people, such as women, children, the elderly and the sick or victims of torture, will be housed in Italy.
An Italian police officer enters a recently built Italian-run migrant center in the port of Shengjin
Housing units, a small hospital, a detention center and offices at the port are surrounded by a 5-meter-high metal fence topped with barbed wire.
Migrants crowd the deck of the Italian Coast Guard patrol boat CP327 as it arrives at the port of Lampedusa, September 18, 2023
Migrants departing Tunisia are rescued by Spanish NGO workers off the coast of Italy, August 2023
Around 7,000 cement pillars were deeply buried to consolidate the base, following “the same Venice-style anti-seismic and anti-flood construction pattern,” according to Bucci, adding that the center has an independent water supply with two wells. and a separate power line.
It has all Italian construction standards and the most up-to-date level of security and living standards, like all migrant camps in Italy, according to Bucci.
The logistical part of the staff was divided with five-meter-high barbed wire fences from the administrative offices, the area where non-asylees would stay and the larger accommodation area, including a penitentiary area with four-person shelter cells for up to 20 inmates. .
The Gjader center has a capacity of 3,000 beds. Authorities hope it will never be fully occupied, but that depends on the flow of migrants brought here.
The centers will only accommodate adult men, while vulnerable people, such as women, children, the elderly and sick people or victims of torture, will be housed in Italy. Families will not be separated.
Adult men made up 74 percent of migrants arriving in Italy by sea during the first seven months of 2024, according to data from the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR.
While in Albania, migrants will retain their right under international and European Union law to apply for asylum in Italy and to have their applications processed there.
Each claim is expected to take a maximum of 28 days, including any appeals, to process. Italy agreed to take in those granted asylum.
The interior of the courtroom of a recently built Italian-run migrant center in Shengjin port
The two controversial installations will cost Italy around £560.7 million over five years
According to the Italian Ministry of the Interior, as of October 11, 52,425 migrants had arrived in Italy by sea this year, compared to 138,947 on the same date last year.
Those whose applications are rejected face deportation directly from Albania.
“Respecting the human rights and other rights of migrants is a top priority,” said the ambassador.
The controversial deal to outsource the housing of asylum seekers to a non-EU country has been welcomed by some countries which, like Italy, suffer a heavy refugee burden.
The agreement was endorsed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as an example of “innovative thinking” in approaching the issue of migration to the European Union, but was criticized by human rights groups for setting a dangerous precedent.
Rama made it clear that no other country will be able to have such centers in Albania.
For Italy, they are considered an expression of gratitude for the tens of thousands of Albanians it welcomed after the fall of the communist regime in 1991.
Meloni and his right-wing allies have long demanded that European countries share more of the burden of migration.
She defended the Albania deal as an innovative solution to a problem that has vexed the EU for years.
In the 1990s, Italy welcomed large numbers of Albanians and Rome is today one of the strongest supporters of Albania's EU membership hopes.
“We are friends and between friends you help each other,” Rama said last year.
