Italian Navy ship with 16 migrants arrives in Albania

(ANSA) - SHENGJIN, OCT 16 - The Italian navy's ship Libra with the first 16 migrants to be processed in new Italian-run centres Albania arrived in the port of Shengjin early on Wednesday, ANSA sources said.
    The migrants, 10 Bangladeshis and six Egyptians, are the first to test the innovative and controversial scheme that has been criticised by rights groups and the political opposition but hailed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as a model for others to follow.
    The 16 adult males, intercepted in international waters south of Lampedusa, are to undergo accelerated border procedures.
    They will first be identified and undergo health screening.
    They will be transferred to the other 'Italian' site in Gjader, about 20 kilometers inland, where they will await the outcome of their request for international protection in the center for asylum seekers.
    The Albanian centres, which were initially supposed to have opened in May but were held up by construction and procedural delays, are the result of an agreement between Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni and Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama.
    "Italy has set a good example by signing the Italy-Albania Protocol to process asylum requests in Albanian territory, but under Italian and European jurisdiction," Meloni told the Senate on Tuesday as she reported to parliament before this week's EU summit.
    "The two structures envisaged by the Protocol - the Shengjin center and the Gjader one - are now ready and operational.
    "We took some extra time to get everything done in the best possible way, but we are very satisfied with the results of this work.
    "It is a new, courageous, unprecedented path, but one which perfectly reflects the European spirit and which has everything necessary to be followed with other non-EU nations too.
    "And I also thank Prime Minister Rama and his entire government for believing in the quality and effectiveness of this initiative". (ANSA).