The Italian Navy’s Cassiopea reached the Albanian port of Shengjin at 7:30 AM on Tuesday. It carried 49 migrants to Albania who were rescued over the weekend in international waters south of Sicily’s Lampedusa island.
Most of the migrants are from Bangladesh, while others come from Egypt, Ivory Coast, and Gambia. Upon arrival, the migrants underwent medical checks at an Italian-run hotspot. Vulnerable individuals will be relocated to Italy, as happened in previous migrant transfers to Albania last October and November.
The migrants will receive food and new clothes before identification procedures begin. Security officials will oversee the process, which often takes several hours. Their next destination is the Gjader centre, located a few kilometres from the port.
At Gjader, the migrants will remain while their asylum applications are processed. Those whose applications are rejected will be moved to a pre-removal detention centre within the camp. The site also includes a small prison for those accused of crimes.
New legislation passed in January requires asylum detentions to be approved by Italian appeals courts. This replaces the earlier system managed by immigration courts. Tuesday’s transfer marks the third under Italy’s plan to process asylum seekers in Albania, a non-EU country.
The plan faced legal challenges last year. Judges blocked the detention of two groups of migrants and referred their cases to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). In October, the ECJ ruled that asylum seekers cannot be sent to countries deemed unsafe.
Italy has since updated its list of 19 safe countries, adding Egypt and Bangladesh. The European Court is set to review the plan’s compliance with EU law. Meanwhile, Italy will continue to send rescued migrants to Albania for processing.
