Navy vessel ready to take migrants to Albania

(ANSA) - ROME, JAN 24 - After a two-month-long pause, operations to take migrants rescued in the Mediterranean to Italian-run processing centres in Albania will resume, well-informed sources said Friday.
    Italian Navy patrol vessel Cassiopea is currently close to the Sicilian island of Lampedusa and is ready to transfer migrants to the centres of Shengjin and Gjader which Italy opened last October to process asylum seekers, the sources said.
    Italian judges refused to validate the detention of the first two small groups of asylum seekers taken to Albania, under an agreement between Rome and Tirana, referring their cases to the European Court of Justice - which had earlier established that an applicant could not go through a fast-track procedure that could lead to their repatriation if their country of provenance was not deemed wholly safe.
    The countries of origin in the cases, Bangladesh and Egypt, were not judged to be safe "over all of their territory".
    The government in December tried to get around this hurdle with a measure listing 19 safe countries for repatriation, including both Bangladesh and Egypt. (ANSA).