One of eight migrants taken to Albania
as the second batch of asylum seekers due to be processed at an
Italian-run centre there has turned out to be vulnerable and
will return to Italy, officials said Friday.
The first batch were already returned to Italy after a Rome
court ruled their countries of origin, Egypt and Bangladesh,
were not wholly safe.
This second batch is also from those two countries but the
government is confident a court will not overturn a decree on
safe countries passe by Giorgia Meloni's executive to forestall
such challenges.
The migrant was found to be vulnerable for some health issues,
as happened with one of the previous batch, of whom another was
discovered to be a minor and thus ineligible for the programme
too.
The migrant, of whom it is not known if he is Egyptian or
Bangladeshi, will be taken back to Brindisi on board the Italian
Navy ship that is collecting migrants - healthy adult males -
for the Albania project.
Meloni says the controversial scheme, which has spurred interest
from the UK and Netherlands among others, will be a deterrent
for migrants setting out for Italy and Europe.
The Italian opposition says it creates a new Guantanamo and
unacceptably externalises the migrant issue, while only
addressing a drop in the ocean of arrivals each year.
Calling it a propaganda stunt, they note that when up to full
speed it will only process 3,000 migrants a year - when over
150,000 reached Italy last year, a number that has fallen
sharply this year.
European Commission President Urusla von der Leyen has called
the project a model that could be emulated by other countries.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who binned the previous
Tory government's migrants to Rwanda policy, has voiced especial
interest in the Italy-Albania deal.
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