Navy ship with 16 migrants arrives in Albania: 10 Bengalis and 6 Egyptians

The Navy ship Libra is entering the Albanian port of Shengjmn with the first 16 migrants (10 Bengalis and 6 Egyptians) on board, who will be accommodated in the Italian facilities built in the country. The migrants will undergo accelerated border procedures. On the people to be transferred, rescued at sea, an initial screening was carried out on board to verify that they meet the requirements: they come from safe, male, non-vulnerable countries. The Ministry of the Interior is in charge of the initiative. Last week, the Schengjin and Gjiader centres, which are to receive the transferred migrants, became operational.

Gjader is a former Albanian Air Force site abandoned for many years and completely rebuilt. About 400 people will be taken there in the first phase. But in the meantime, the controversy over the centres has not died down, stirred up by an investigation by the newspaper Domani into tenders without transparency. For PD secretary Elly Schlein it is '800 million wasted'.

A hotspot has been set up at the port of Schengjin for the identification of migrants rescued at sea exclusively by Italian ships. After the identification of personal details, the people will be transferred to Gjader, some twenty kilometres inland. Three facilities have been set up here: a centre for the detention of asylum seekers (880 places), a CPR (144 places) and a penitentiary (20 places). The facility is enclosed by a five-metre high fence with prefabricated buildings in the centre where migrants will be housed, while those whose applications are rejected will be housed in a second block, destined to be repatriated.

There are those who raise questions about the process used to award contracts. According to the daily newspaper Il Domani, there were direct assignments for about sixty million euro: dozens of works that were allegedly awarded without tenders from the end of March until September. For the secretary of the PD, Elly Schlein, 'there is a lack of transparency'. For the Dem leader it is a question of '800 million in total that we could have put into healthcare. We are against this violation of the fundamental rights of asylum seekers, which is also a huge waste of Italian taxpayers' money'. For its part, Avs calls for 'the immediate publication of the list of all the companies involved by the Meloni government in the construction of the CPRs in Albania' defined as 'real lagers for the deportation of migrants'.