About 80 foreigners were transported on charter flights from Italy to Albania

The Italian government moved dozens of foreigners held in the country's repatriation centers to an Italian-run facility in Albania in mid-February. The transfer was carried out on two special charter flights, as part of a cooperation agreement signed between Rome and Tirana to manage migration flows.

According to data released on March 3 by the Directorate of Migration and Border Police of the Italian Ministry of the Interior, around 80 people were transferred in total to the detention center in the Gjader region in Albania. The operations were organized in two stages, on February 17 and 20.

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The transportation of foreigners to the center in Gjader had already become known in mid-February through initial unofficial information, however, the exact data on the number of people, the dates of the flights and the cost of the operation have only now been confirmed through documents from the Italian Ministry of the Interior.

The first transfer started from Rome and was carried out with a stopover in cities in southern Italy, before the aircraft headed to Tirana. A few days later, a second flight followed, with an additional group of foreigners who had previously been transferred from various repatriation centers on Italian territory. All were eventually taken to the same detention center in Albania.

A large number of police forces were mobilized to escort the people being transported, which according to the same documents ranged between 90 and 100 officers. The cost of the operation is estimated at approximately 66,600 euros, excluding VAT.

On one of the flights, the aircraft took off from Rome and landed initially in Palermo, Sicily, carrying a smaller number of detainees. It then departed for Tirana with a larger group of passengers. This move, according to Italian authorities, was deemed necessary due to changes in the operation of repatriation centers within the country.

The case has sparked reactions in the Italian opposition. The leader of the Europa party, Riccardo Maggi, announced that he would submit a parliamentary question requesting full information on the financial cost and feasibility of the transfers.

He argued that significant amounts of public money are being spent on the structures that have been created in Albania, noting that they were initially designed to host migrants rescued at sea. As he said, the current practice of transferring people from Italian centers to Albania shows, in his opinion, that the policy of "externalizing" the management of migratory flows is not yielding the expected results.