Italy sends failed asylum seekers to vacant Albanian detention centre

SHENGJIN, Albania (Reuters) - Italy dispatched 40 failed asylum seekers to Albania on Friday to be held until repatriation to their home countries in vacant, Italian-run detention centres built for a stalled migration deterrent scheme.

Italy built two facilities in Albania last year intending to use them to process asylum requests from migrants picked up at sea, hoping the initiative would deter people from trying to reach Italy.

However, the scheme has been put on hold after Italian courts repeatedly annulled the transfer of sea migrants, forcing the government to bring them to Italy to assess their legal situation.

Facing criticism from the opposition over the legal confusion, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's conservative coalition last month decided to use Albania instead as a staging post for people whose asylum bids have already been turned down.

It is not clear how long the migrants will remain in Albania. Under Italian law, failed asylum seekers can be detained for up to 18 months while awaiting deportation.

Italian authorities did not give details about the first group who were taken by a naval vessel from Brindisi, on the Adriatic coast, to the Albanian port of Shengjin.

Italy has a poor record on the repatriation of illegal immigrants. In 2023, just over 4,000 were forcibly sent home, roughly a third of the number returned by France and Germany, official data show.

Many more simply ignored their expulsion orders, either vanishing into the background in Italy, or heading to another European country.

Meloni originally hoped that the two Albanian camps would be able to process some 36,000 male asylum applicants per year from a government list of safe countries, with the idea of swiftly repatriating them after the likely rejection of their requests.

The government still hopes to revert to its original plan and is waiting on a ruling from the European Union's Court of Justice which could compel Italian judges to process new asylum seekers dispatched to Albania.

(Reporting by Florion Goga in Shengjin and Angelo Amante in Rome; Writing by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Ros Russell)