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Italy-Albania-Italy: An immigrant's journey inside the 'Rama-Meloni' magic wand experiment for asylum seekers

2025-03-25 08:04:07Aktualitet SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Italy-Albania-Italy: An immigrant's journey inside the
Prime Ministers Rama and Meloni at the migrant reception center at the port of Shëngjin. Photo: LSA.

Italy’s right-wing government has touted it as a magic bullet for migrants arriving on the Apennine peninsula, but a deal with Albania to speed up the asylum process has stalled in Italy’s courts. Critics say the deal violates international humanitarian law.

When Nizam* filmed the journey on a dinghy full of migrants as it sped towards Italy, he believed it was the end of his gruelling journey to the West.

The 21-year-old Bangladeshi painter picked up his phone, focused on his face, and then turned it around to film about 50 migrants packed into the rubber dinghy. In the short video, a man behind him covers his eyes with his hands as he appears to be crying, while another smiles and pats his shoulder. The deck of the boat, which is plunging through the Mediterranean, is just inches above the water.

Days later, Nizam posted the short clip on TikTok. A voice-over over the footage can be heard saying in Urdu: “Come on, our time has come. Don’t worry, we will come back together.”

At home in a small village in the Madaripur district of Bangladesh, Nizam's parents anxiously awaited news from their son. His mother and one of his three sisters taught Nizam to read, but instead of going to school, he worked to help support the family. On social media, he displayed a mischievous boy's profile, posting videos of himself wearing sunglasses, carefully combed hair, and to complete his style, he accompanied his appearance with borrowed motorbikes. In reality, his life does not resemble this glamorous show. With his elderly father unable to work, Nizam was the sole breadwinner of the family.

“Our family is very poor,” he says. “I have to work.”

Desperate, his parents scraped together money, took out loans and sold a piece of land to pay a known trafficker in their village. Nizam was trafficked first through India, then to Sri Lanka, Kuwait and Egypt. Eventually he reached Libya, first in Benghazi and then in Tripoli, where he fell into the hands of the local mafia, who confiscated his passport and imprisoned him for three days. They filmed him being tortured and sent the videos to his family along with a demand for ransom.

Nizam was only released after his parents paid off the hostage-takers.

“One night they took us to the seaside and put us on a boat,” Nizam recalls. The ruckus that set off from the Libyan port of Zuara headed for Italy. The boat was overcrowded, and Nizam, who cannot swim, thought he would drown. But as the boat approached the Italian island of Lampedusa, one of Europe’s biggest landing sites for asylum seekers, he hoped the worst was over.

He was wrong. More than 300 migrants were intercepted in the last weeks of January by Italian authorities after setting off from Libyan ports. Nizam was one of them. He was transferred to a ship anchored 20 miles off Lampedusa, where he underwent checks on his health, age and nationality.

Forty-nine of them, including Nizami, were informed that they would be sent to migrant camps in Albania, to undergo an accelerated process of processing asylum requests under the agreement between Rome and Tirana, which came into force at the end of last year.

The scheme has been touted by the European Commission - the executive arm of the European Union - as a possible model for the bloc's member states to limit the number of refugees and migrants arriving at their borders. But critics call the scheme inhumane and contrary to international human rights law.

In Albania, Nizam and the other migrants spent a grueling week between two centers – one in the port city of Shëngjin and the other near the military airport in Gjadra – as they filled out paperwork and underwent health checks, interviews, and court hearings.

Six people, who were found to be minors or who were considered vulnerable after preliminary checks, were immediately sent to Italy. The other 43, including Nizami, submitted asylum applications, which were immediately rejected, paving the way for their deportation.

But before the deportation could take place, an Italian court intervened, ruling – for the third time – that migrants headed for Italy could not be legally detained in Albania. Along with the others, Nizam was then transported to a reception center in Bari, Italy, where he now awaits the outcome of his asylum appeal.

However, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has vowed not to be stopped by the courts. Others are also interested. In September 2024, Meloni hosted British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Rome, who expressed interest in the initiative after earlier declaring that a similar British plan to send migrants to Rwanda was “dead and buried.” A month later, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who has expressed support for repatriation centers outside the EU, called on member states to learn “lessons from the Italy-Albania protocol.”

When the European Commission unveiled on March 11, 2025, a new legal framework that allows member states to build repatriation centers outside the EU bloc, Meloni's plan took on the appearance of a well-thought-out and timely project.

According to a draft document conceived under pressure from anti-immigration governments, the new framework would replace an existing 2008 directive to allow the establishment of "return centres" in third countries that respect "international human rights standards and principles".

However, this framework, unlike the Albania-Italy agreement which provides for third-country processing of asylum applications, allows these centers outside the EU only for failed asylum applications.

Critics say the Italian scheme is simply unnecessarily prolonging the suffering of a traumatic journey for migrants like Nizam.

“It is a propaganda experiment, which brings suffering to people,” says Rachele Scarpa, a deputy from the opposition Italian Democratic Party. “The fundamental rights of unfortunate people are reduced to a minimum,” she added.

Silvia Calderoni, a lawyer representing Nizam and three other migrants transferred with him to camps in Albania, declined a request for an interview with them, saying her clients needed psychological help before they were ready to speak in public. This account of Nizam’s journey is based on court documents and transcripts of his interviews with authorities, which BIRN has.

Court battles

Announced by Meloni and her Albanian counterpart, Edi Rama, in 2023, the scheme for processing asylum claims abroad envisages the detention of adult males from so-called 'safe countries' caught in international waters without identification documents. They face an accelerated asylum review process of 28 days, before almost certain repatriation.

Italy had initially planned a budget of 653 million euros for the scheme over five years, but real costs have risen sharply even before work even began. The cost of building the two camps rose by more than two-thirds last year, from an initial estimate of 39.2 million euros to 65 million euros.

Meloni initially predicted that the camps in Albania would process 36,000 migrants a year, but the scheme quickly stalled.

On October 4, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that the designation of a country as “safe” must apply to its entire territory. This ruling was later cited by a court in Rome when it refused to approve the detention of the first group of migrants transferred to Albania that same month.

The migrants were then sent back to Italy to follow the regular asylum process, angering Meloni’s government, which described the decision as an overreach of the judiciary. In response, her government sought to strengthen the legal basis for the project, approving by decree a new list of 19 “safe” countries, which was then enacted into law.

But Meloni's strategy failed. When a second group of migrants was sent to Albania in November 2024, the court in Rome suspended its decision and referred the case to the Court of Justice of the EU, the CJEU.

Italian judges asked the CJEU in late October to clarify whether exceptions to the definition of a safe country could be made for certain categories of people. A hearing at the CJEU was held on 25 February and the court's ruling is expected in the spring.

Without waiting for the CJEU’s decision, Meloni proceeded with the transfers, referring to a Supreme Court ruling in December 2024, which she interpreted as giving the government, not the courts, the right to designate safe places. But while the government’s right to designate safe places has never been in question, the court emphasized that judges were entitled to assess the application of the law on a case-by-case basis.

On 24 January, the Italian military ship Cassiopea was positioned about 20 miles off the coast of Lampedusa, as the number of migrants from Libya increased due to favorable weather conditions. The Italian coast guard and financial police intercepted 8 boats heading towards Lampedusa, transferring many of those on board to the Cassiopea. Here the migrants were scanned on board for their suitability for transfer to Albania.

According to the Italian Interior Ministry, of those assessed, 53 individuals presented identity documents and were sent to Italy for a regular asylum process; 49 others – six from Egypt, one from Ivory Coast, one from Gambia and the rest from Bangladesh – were decided to be transferred to Albania.

'Exhausted and distrustful'

Confusion over the destination led to chaos on the ship. According to a group of Italian opposition MPs and human rights experts who inspected the camps in Albania, migrants resisted the transfer. During the inspection, the group said one Egyptian migrant said he and his fellow countrymen had refused food on the ship.

“They didn’t know they were going to Albania,” said Cipriana Contu, an Italian lawyer who participated in the inspection.

"It was a devastating moment, very emotionally heavy. He said that when they learned they were going to be sent to Albania, they started a hunger strike and some burst into tears," she says.

Papia Aktar, a Bengali translator and legal advisor based in Rome, also present during the inspection, said: “They were exhausted and incredulous.”

An Italian Interior Ministry official, aware of the operation but speaking on condition of anonymity, objected: “We have no data on food refusal.”

The ship Cassiopea anchored in Shëngjin at around 7:30 am on January 28.

A BIRN reporter witnessed the migrants disembarking from the ship in groups of nine to 10, dragging their feet as they walked in a line between a cordon of police officers, doctors and paramedics. They were mostly wearing sandals and matching blue T-shirts, some were wrapped in scarves or had hats to protect them from the cold winter air. Clutching plastic bags with their belongings, they disappeared into the camp set up at the port.

Ded Bukaqeja, part of the first wave of Albanian immigrants who immigrated to Italy by ship in the 1990s, now the owner of a telecommunications company that provides internet service to the camps, witnessed the arrival of one of the groups of immigrants in Albania.

“They were exhausted, deeply shaken. They were pitiful,” he says of the migrants who arrived in Shëngjin. “When I saw them suffering like that, it all came back to me, just like when we left. No one left their country for pleasure,” he says.

In the prefabricated gray containers of the reception center in Shëngjin, migrants were checked for infectious diseases, given clothes, fed, and informed about the asylum process.

Four minor migrants were discovered during medical and psychological checks. Another was identified as “vulnerable.” The fifth were immediately transferred to Italy for the regular asylum procedure, which can take years to complete.

The Interior Ministry official, who spoke to BIRN, said the four minors had claimed to be adults during checks on the boat and changed their statements upon arrival in Albania.

But Scarpa, the opposition MP who led the inspection of the camps, said they would likely have declared their correct age earlier if there had been more time to explain their rights.

Expedited process defects

The migrants remaining in Shëngjin were issued detention orders, which required approval from Italian courts within 48 hours, then transported to Gjadra, a larger center about 20 kilometers inland, surrounded by five-meter-high walls.

Telephone access was limited.

"When they get on the phone and hear 'Hello' from their family on the other side, they burst into tears."

“There are some who have not communicated for days and there are even family members who may think they are dead,” said an Albanian paralegal employed by Medihospes, an Italian organization that provides services including healthcare, psychological support and legal aid inside reception centers across the country. Medihospes was selected last year by the Italian government to provide services inside Albanian camps.

"When they get on the phone and hear 'Hello' from their family on the other end, they burst into tears," said the paralegal.

Authorities in Italy conducted asylum interviews with migrants via online video links. Transcripts show that their lawyers were not present, standard practice for such interviews, Calderoni and a source at Italy's Interior Ministry said. However, a translator was present.

Nizami wasn't the only one from Madaripur. Besides him were Malik*, 27, and Rohan*, 22.

According to transcripts of their interviews with Italian officials, Malik had been a student but was forced to drop out and work as a farmhand to support his diabetic mother after his father died. Rohan told interviewers that he emigrated to Europe in the hope of securing a better life for his wife and unborn daughter. In Libya, he said he was arrested by police and sold to the mafia. He said he spent two years in prison, where he was beaten and suffered a fractured shoulder.

"I have never studied, but my daughter must study," he said, according to the transcript, during the interview with Italian officials who spoke to the migrants via video links.

Malik told interviewers that loan sharks, determined to get back large sums of money they had lent him, attacked and broke his sister's nose in Bangladesh. During his 11-month stint in Libyan prisons, he says his captors pulled out his fingernails and burned him with cigarette butts.

“I have marks of the violence I suffered in Libya all over my body,” he is quoted as saying. “They didn’t give us food, water, or even let us wash. They treated us cruelly,” he says.

Malik pleaded with authorities not to send him back to Bangladesh. “I want to be given the opportunity to stay in Italy for work,” he said, adding: “I would like you to consider my request carefully.”

Nizami made the same appeal. “I have a request for the Italian state, to send me to Italy so that I can find a job. With that job I can support my family and have a better future,” he said.

During the interviews, a second case of a “vulnerable” person was discovered, who also moved to Italy. “We identified a vulnerable person after we saw that he was limping. Later I learned that he also had burn marks,” explained a second legal assistant employed by Medihospes. He lives in Lezha and asked to remain anonymous.

All asylum applications submitted upon the migrants' arrival in Albania were rejected the next day, January 29. The migrants, including Nizam, Malik, and Rohan, were given 7 days to appeal the rejection decision.

Francesco Ferri, an expert from ActionAid, who was also present during the inspection in late January, criticized the speed of the check and procedure, arguing that it was carried out with a speed that did not allow for the detection of psychological trauma.

Contu also said that the immigrants she met during the visit were confused about legal procedures and that they needed to be given more time to process the trauma.

“Someone who has gone through an experience of persecution needs time, both to digest that they were subjected to torture and persecution and to express themselves,” she said. “The danger (of rushing) is that they either don’t tell everything or they seem contradictory.”

The Italian Interior Ministry official disputed this, saying that migrants were given free access to legal aid, detailed information on rights, and received 20-minute group clarifications and individual consultations lasting 2-3 hours.

One of Medihospe's legal assistants, who testified that he saw the vulnerable migrant with burn marks, supported this narrative: "We try to help migrants and we want their asylum applications to be successful."

Legal confrontation

According to the regulations provided for in the accelerated processing scheme for asylum applications, Italian authorities must secure court approval for the detention of migrants within 48 hours.

In December, in an attempt to break the legal deadlock, Meloni moved jurisdiction for detention decisions from the trial court to the Rome Court of Appeal. She believed the latter would be more supportive of the initiative. The change became law quietly, after being included as an article within another law, on work visa quotas, passed just before Christmas.

Court leaders appointed six judges to rule on the detention orders, including four who had previously ruled on two previous cases involving groups of migrants sent to Albania. This fueled speculation that the detention request would be rejected again.

Hearings on the detention orders took place in Rome on January 31, behind closed doors in half a dozen judges’ offices set up as courtrooms. A BIRN reporter watched through the doors as judges opened and closed as they prepared to question the migrants via video links in the presence of interpreters.

The lawyers, sitting in the corridors, anxiously awaited their turn. Journalists were not allowed in the courtroom.

For some of the immigrants, the uncertainty accompanying the process was a shock.

“The detainee cried throughout the hearing,” the transcript of Nizam's file states.

His lawyer, Calderoni, who was given the cases just 24 hours before the hearings, criticized the speed of the process. She said it gave her little time to prepare and speak to the immigrants she represented. “We were forced to work in the dark,” she said.

In a ruling issued on the evening of January 31, the court overturned 43 detention orders and referred the case back to the CJEU. The court also ruled that the migrants should be sent to Italy, in a new blow to Meloni.

A video taken by an Albanian port worker, shared with BIRN, shows the migrants, now carrying large black bags, lining up and boarding an Italian coastguard ship via a metal ramp. Unlike on the day of their arrival, they were now wearing warm jackets and shoes.

The migrants arrived in Bari on the evening of February 1. As the ship approached the port, they were seen looking out of the ship's windows, some smiling. Protesters against the scheme gathered nearby, holding a banner reading "Welcome" and calling out against the procedure. After disembarking the ship, the migrants were put on buses and transferred to a reception center outside Bari.

Meanwhile, lawyers rushed to appeal the decisions denying asylum to their clients. Contu confirmed that all had appealed the rejections before the 7-day deadline.

Meanwhile, in Albania, the camps in Shëngjin and Gjadër are empty. The remaining staff spend their working hours inside prefabricated cabins or drinking coffee in the few open bars on the Shëngjin coast.

Nizam, Malik and Rohan are now out of isolation. In the reception centers in Italy, residents are free to move around during the day. Calderoni said her clients were “recovering” and would soon be able to work, while they await the decision on appeals against their asylum rejections, which are expected sometime later this year.

Nizam also returned to his social media pages, posting photos and videos of himself on the Adriatic coast, or photographing Bari destinations like the Teatro Margherita. One of these photos shows him standing elegantly in front of a cafe, surrounded by pine trees, wearing sunglasses and a loose-fitting T-shirt.

*The names of the immigrants have been changed to protect their privacy.

Reporter.al


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