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Italian ship heads back to Albania with 8 migrants

An Italian navy ship set sail for Albania on Wednesday carrying a second small group of migrants, with Rome wanting to salvage a questionable strategy to procedure asylum hunters abroad after a very first attempt hit legal difficulties.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's government hopes that taking boat migrants to secured camps in Albania instead of letting them enter Italy will act as a deterrence to others considering making the hazardous sea crossing to Europe.

Italy sent out an initial group of 16 migrants to Albania last month, but they were all brought back within days, the majority of them after a Rome court ruled they might not be held in the Balkan nation due to concerns over their legal status.

Just 8 migrants were dispatched towards Albania on Wednesday from where they had actually been rescued near the island of Lampedusa, suggesting the government was treading gently, testing to see if it might conquer the October deadlock.

The very first group of migrants came from Egypt and Bangladesh, 2 of 22 nations that Italy had actually categorized as safe, significance the government believed they could be rapidly repatriated.

Nevertheless, the Rome judges questioned this, pointing to a. recent ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which said. a country outside the EU can not be declared safe unless its. whole territory is considered without threat.

As an outcome, all those in Albania were brought to Italy,. where they were put in vulnerable reception centres.

Infuriated by the decision, Meloni's cabinet upgraded the. legal status of its list of safe countries, making it an act of. law instead of a lower ministerial decree, believing this. means it will be harder for courts to challenge its credibility.

The armed force did not say where the brand-new group of. asylum-seekers originated from. Italian papers had actually speculated at. the weekend that the federal government might concentrate on Tunisians,. due to the fact that their nation was considered more stable than many others.

Italy has actually developed two reception centres in Albania, in the. first scheme by a European Union country to divert migrants to a. non-EU nation. The facilities in Shengjin and Gjader are. staffed by Italian workers.

Under the handle Tirana, the overall number of migrants. present at one time in Albania can not be more than 3,000.

Italy has actually stated just non-vulnerable men from safe nations. would be sent to there, imposing a limit of 36,000 a year.

(source: Reuters)