Italian Court Rules Migrants Shipped To Albania Must Be Sent Back

By Fjori Sinoruka

A court in Rome on Friday ordered the transfer back to Italy of 12 migrants from Bangladesh and Egypt who were intercepted at sea and then transported to a reception centre in Albania under a controversial new scheme backed by Italy and Albania’s premiers.

The court said that it was impossible to assess whether they came from a “safe country of origin” and so they have a right to have their asylum claims processed in Italy.

The decision was based on a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, which concluded that a country of origin cannot be assessed as “safe” if parts of it are not – a decision that could have a major impact on the Italy-to-Albania offshoring project.

The court ruling can be appealed and it is so far unclear when the migrants will be returned to Italy.

The first Italian military ship holding 16 migrants arrived in Albania on Wednesday. However, four migrants were sent back to Italy the same day; two of them because they were minors and two other for health reasons, according to media reports.

Italy unveiled its plan to send refugees and migrants intercepted by its navy at sea to processing centres in Albania was unveiled in November last year by Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama and Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni.

The scheme has been criticised in both countries by activists and human rights lawyers who question Albania’s capacities to handle the arrangements. But the deal received the green light from Albania’s Constitutional Court in January.

According to the agreement, Italy is covering all the construction and equipment costs.

The arrangement is supposed to operate along the same lines as Italy’s repatriation “hotspots”, where migrants and refugees are detained pending repatriation, but which the European Court of Human Rights criticised in March.