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SHENGJIN: Dozens of migrants left Albania in Italian custody on Saturday after a ruling by judges in Rome struck a fresh blow to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s embattled third-country migration centers.
According to an AFP reporter, an Italian boat carrying 43 migrants departed from the Albanian port of Shengjin just after midday on Saturday.
The migrants arrived in Albania on Tuesday, following an earlier months-long pause in the scheme. Several were sent back the same day, while dozens remained.
On Friday, Rome’s Court of Appeals referred the case to the European Court of Justice, or ECJ, meaning the 43 migrants in Albania had to be transferred to Italy, said a government source.
Meloni’s plan to outsource migrant processing to a non-EU country and speed up repatriations of failed asylum seekers is being followed closely by other European nations.
The plan, heavily criticized by rights groups and opposition parties in Italy, has run into repeated blocks, and the ECJ is examining legal questions raised by several Italian courts.
The migrants sent to Albania were among a group intercepted by Italian authorities as they tried to cross the Mediterranean.
Most hailed from Bangladesh, while there were also six Egyptians, one man from Ivory Coast and one from Gambia, said rights associations.
Meloni signed a deal with Albanian counterpart Edi Rama in November 2023 to open two Italian-run centers in Albania.
The centers became operational in October, but after judges ruled against the detentions of the first two groups of men transferred there, they were instead sent to Italy.
Like many other countries, Italy has a list of so-called safe countries from which asylum seekers can have their applications fast-tracked.
The judges who blocked the first transfer of migrants cited an ECJ ruling stipulating that EU states can only designate entire countries as safe, not parts of countries.
Italy’s list included some countries with unsafe areas.
In response, Meloni’s government passed a law cutting its safe list to 19 countries from 22 — and insisting all parts of those nations were safe.
But judges ruled against a second transfer of migrants — seven men from Egypt and Bangladesh — saying they wanted clarification from the ECJ.
According to Italian media, an ECJ hearing has been provisionally set for February.

QUETTA, Pakistan: Pakistani separatist militants claimed on Saturday an attack on a highway in a volatile southwestern province that killed 18 paramilitaries and seriously wounded three others.
The attack was claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army, a group behind rising violence in Balochistan province that borders Afghanistan and Iran.
A vehicle carrying unarmed border troops “came under gunfire from 70 to 80 armed assailants who had blocked the road,” a police official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The official said 17 troops were killed, along with another who came to their aid in the overnight attack on Friday near Mangochar, a city close to the Afghan border.
The military said 18 paramilitaries were killed as they responded to militants who “attempted to establish roadblocks,” while 12 attackers were killed.
The BLA said in a statement it had killed 17 troops and had carried out multiple “operations.”
Attacks have increased in Balochistan province in recent months, often against security forces.
The BLA frequently claims deadly attacks against security forces or Pakistanis from other provinces, notably Punjabis in Balochistan.
The group has also targeted energy projects with foreign financing — most notably from China — accusing outsiders of exploiting the resource-rich region while excluding residents in the poorest part of Pakistan.
In November, the BLA claimed responsibility for a bombing at Quetta’s main railway station that killed 26 people, including 14 soldiers.
The group also said it was behind coordinated attacks by dozens of assailants in August that killed at least 39 people, one of the highest tolls in the region.
Violence has surged in Pakistan’s border regions since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021.
Pakistan has accused the Taliban government of failing to rout out militants who launch attacks from Afghan soil, a charge it denies.
More than 1,600 people were killed in attacks in 2024 — the deadliest year in almost a decade — including 685 civil and military security forces, according to the Center for Research and Security Studies, an Islamabad-based analysis group.