Albania migrants, one is vulnerable: already back in Italy. Judges' decision on the other seven awaited

Seven remain the asylum seekers brought to Albania today by the Navy ship Libra. One of the eight migrants destined for the accelerated border procedure - three Egyptians and five Bengalis - was in fact found to be vulnerable due to health problems during the medical screening carried out on arrival this morning in the port of Shengjin. He will therefore be transferred to Brindisi on board the same Navy ship. His travelling companions, on the other hand, remain in the Gjader centre.

In a short while, as the accelerated procedures at the border, the territorial commission's lightning assessment on the application for international protection, the predictable appeals and the unknown: will the court in Rome (the decision could already arrive on Sunday) validate the detentions with a view to repatriation? Will the list of safe countries of origin, included in the decree law and then merged in the flows decree, be enough to avert new stops in the light of the EU Court of Justice's 4 October ruling?

After the controversy of recent weeks, the president of the Anm, Giuseppe Santalucia, hopes that 'the jurisdiction can work serenely. The magistrates are doing their job and there is no encroachment'. On the first trip, Libra brought 16 migrants to Shengjin on 16 October. Four failed the screening (two vulnerable and two minors) and immediately took the route to Italy. The other 12 were released two days after the magistrates of the immigration section of the court of Rome failed to validate the detentions.

The eight migrants who arrived in Albania on 8 November were intercepted in international waters south of Lampedusa and taken to the Libra on Monday. On the patrol vessel, they were pre-screened to verify that they met the requirements of the regulations: males of legal age, not vulnerable and from one of 19 safe countries. They remained on the ship for five days before arriving in Schengjin. The group disembarked from the Italian patrol boat in the morning. All in black overalls with purple chest bands provided on board, flip-flops and plastic bags with their few belongings in hand. The first stop was the hotspot set up at the port, where the Italian medical team carried out more accurate examinations on the foreigners, which revealed vulnerabilities in one of them such as to advise against staying in Albanian territory. An Italian parliamentary delegation and representatives of the associations of the Asylum and Immigration Table are on site on a monitoring mission to check the conditions of the centres: living spaces, sanitary facilities, access to open spaces, compliance with legal and international procedures, including the possibility for migrants to choose a solicitor and receive information in their own language, the legitimacy of the selection and detention process.

Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi continues to defend the operation and announces new appeals in view of possible new rejections of the detentions. "We," he says, "are convinced that everything complies with European law. The judicial paths are long and complex. There are judges who are pronouncing in a certain way, we do not agree with these pronouncements, we have challenged them, we will make other appeals if we do not agree with other measures and then we will reach a point where each trial reaches a final third instance that will decide'. The wait is on for the Court of Cassation, which on 4 December will decide on an interpellation put forward by the Roman judges themselves to decide whether they can retain some discretion in assessing a safe country or will simply have to stick to the Foreign Ministry's list (now in the new decree-law of 21 October).