The inside of the permanent repatriation center (CPR) in Gjadër, Albania | Photo: Blog Tra Cielo e Terra
The inside of the permanent repatriation center (CPR) in Gjadër, Albania | Photo: Blog Tra Cielo e Terra

The head of the Albania branch of Caritas condemned the Gjadër migrant detention center model in a discussion with the Tra Cielo e Terra blog.

"Living in a cage is not humane," noted the head of the Albania office of the Caritas charity organization, Ariela Mitri, in a discussion published July 10 on the Tra Cielo e Terra blog. The reference was to the permanent repatriation center (CPR) in Gjadër, created as a result of a Memorandum of Understanding between Italy and Albania.

"You must give people a possibility, hope for a better and safer life," she added in describing the activities of the ecclesiastical organization over the past ten years, in line with the invitation of Pope Francis to welcome, integrate, protect, and stand alongside migrants.

'Risk of replication in Europe'

"Gjadër is another reality," Mitri continued, underscoring the various aspects of a "pilot model that, if it were to function, would, according to the intentions of those who designed it, be applied elsewhere in Europe as well."

However, she stressed, it "has no future and must not have one."

The Caritas director stressed that, "Albania gave the land, but the government in Tirana has nothing to do with the model, the structure, and the conditions."

"Everything is managed by Italy," she noted, "no one else is involved. If, after an initial identification, the decision is made that the person should go to Gjadër, then they are sent to that place that is a de facto detention center, not a migrant reception center."

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'Project analogous to the scandalous UK-Rwanda one'

Mitri stressed the "unusual" nature of such a procedure, "since, at the legal level, if people have chosen Italy as a destination, then they must come to Italy. They cannot be moved. In the case of repatriations, these must depart from Italy, and thus they have to be taken back to Italy and from there be sent back to their country. This back-and-forth movement does not make any sense."

This practice, without any sort of minimal guarantees and with higher costs, is "absurd", she added.

"We are talking about a model along the lines of the analogous one -- which fortunately did not go through -- already discussed when the UK wanted to send migrants, including Albanians, to Rwanda: something scandalous."

"There were meetings, but then that proposal was shelved," she noted.

"In this case, instead, Italy was more determined as well as quicker and wanted to immediately bring in the Gjadër model".

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