A 14-year-old: “From the departing motorboat I saw my mother crying” Twenty-eight children from Fier, Berat and Lushnja, found on the streets of Milan, returned to Durrës yesterday. Illegal migrants, soldiers and racism DURRËS - “When my parents accompanied me to the motorboat that was leaving for Italy, I did not cry: only my mother shed tears, because she is a woman, while my father and I are men, and men never cry...”. The “man” is only 14 years old and worked as a beggar in Italy. His family from Fier had sold him to an organization in Milan that manages nearly a hundred Albanian children sent to beg at the city’s intersections. And this morning little Altin, together with 27 other children, returned to Durrës on the “Palladio” ferry. They were still wearing their... work clothes: ragged trousers, oversized sweaters, and torn shoes. For several hours the small group of children remained under guard at the Border Police office, where they were questioned: the youngest is 10, the oldest sixteen. They are all from Fier, except one from Berat and another from Lushnja. In the evening, they returned home on a bus sent from the Fier police station. Altin recounts his adventure without emotion, even though he has lived through an experience that has scandalized Europe. “The newspapers have written lies,” he explains in the tone of a grown-up. “It isn’t true that I earned 300,000 lire a day. Italians aren’t that rich.” When did you leave Albania? “I left three weeks ago. My father and mother accompanied me to Vlorë, and there I got on a motorboat. They paid 40,000 lekë to send me to Italy. Four other children were in the same boat with me. I didn’t know them, and we didn’t exchange a word during the whole trip. I didn’t know any of the people on that motorboat: the sea at night frightened me a little. My parents had told me: be careful. And as my mother said goodbye, she was crying...” Did your friends from Vlorë leave too? “No, someone came from Greece too. He got on the ferry leaving from Igoumenitsa and hid inside a truck. When the vehicle arrived in Italy and stopped to refuel, he cut through the tarpaulin and ran away.” Why did you go to Italy? “My parents organized my trip. We also have relatives there, and I like Italy. My father is a laborer, my mother is unemployed. They needed my money.” What happened when you arrived in Italy? “In Brindisi I met another Albanian: his name is Branko, he is from Germany, because Germans are richer. But then the Italian police caught me.” Where did you sleep in Milan? “At Stazione Nord. There was a train that stayed there for a long time, and I worked in front of the intersections, asking Italians in cars for money. I kept some for myself and handed over the rest. Branko told me that if we didn’t earn much in Milan, we would go to Naples; he introduced me to it. We got to Milan by car. There were other boys like me: the work I had to do was simple. I had to stand still near the intersections and ask Naples.” What will you do when you grow up, Altin? “I want to work, like my father. But not in Albania. I want to go to Germany and work where the big cars are made. Then I’ll be able to buy one too, and when I return to Albania I’ll stop at intersections and give alms to children poorer than me.” CARLO BOLLINO TIRANA - Albania has once again returned to the world’s major news screens because of a tragedy. After cholera and the energy crisis, all the press is now talking about Albania in connection with the issue of illegal migration. Reporters sent here are arriving at Rinas; news programs are broadcasting images of the village near the town of Rieti; shocking headlines are appearing: “Reopen the crematoria,” “Fewer Albanians, more jobs,” “Albanians out,” “Albanians, stop...”. The important Jewish community, in response to the episode, once again sees it as an alarming sign of a lack of tolerance. And we do not believe it is a coincidence that this episode has happened precisely now, with soldiers lined up against the usual sight of poor children from a hungry country; analysts and commentators are again analyzing and commenting in the name of understanding the history of a people who “flee hunger.” There is something disturbing, heavy and bitter in what is happening these days: the reproduction, across every latitude, of images of an old-fashioned, isolated and entirely outdated Albania. And so a suspicion arises: behind this distorted machinery of information, is there a hint of casual racism? The West, then, continues to view this part of Europe through a discriminatory prejudice. Why? First of all, because the West is inattentive and finds it easier to recall the devastating images of the Albanian arrivals in 1991 than to look for the new Albania. And then because these big newspapers really are racist, too. But something new and even more serious has happened. The deployment of the army along the Italian coast, which inevitably evokes the idea of an enemy, risks unleashing a wave of physical racism that directly threatens Albanians living in Italy. Two days ago, on the walls of a At first, “Albanians out,” “Albanians, stop.” The community has rebelled, but the episode remains a troubling sign of intolerance. this episode happened precisely now, with soldiers lined up against the new enemy. The army’s deployment against Asians risks bringing this racism to Albania as well. If the presence of Italian soldiers concealed any danger, it has now materialized: today the Albanian enemy risks becoming the target of madness and discrimination. We hope the soldiers will be withdrawn, although this does not mean that the problem of undocumented migrants should remain unresolved. For there is no doubt that the image of the undocumented Albanian who secretly lands on Italian beaches contributes to nourishing a culture of discrimination and contempt. Legalizing immigration through an Italian law that respects European standards is an urgent objective. For months, the Italian Parliament has been holding up a bill on seasonal work: the real emergency is to discuss that bill, not to deploy the army. Regulating immigration deserves first place on the agendas of the regular work programs planned by the Italian and Albanian governments. Friendship, cooperation, development, assistance—these are wonderful words, but they risk being devalued by a policy that forgets the presence of 100,000 Albanians who live in Italy today. Racism strikes them first. Then it strikes their entire country. A demonstration against racism toward Albanians

Bad food KORÇË - “We want fresh food, just as we want to see our relatives more often!” And they continue protesting behind prison bars. They are 120 ordinary prisoners at Korçë prison who, although deprived of their freedom, have risen up to demand better living conditions. The arrival of spring has prompted this protest by the prisoners, some of whom could not be persuaded to leave their cells, not even after a several-hour meeting with representatives of the police station. The strike has escalated into a refusal to eat. The main reasons are economic and social. The main grievance behind the hunger strike appears to be the unsatisfactory quality of the prison food, according to the prisoners. The strike began eight days ago, and the inmates in cell 16 were the instigators. They asked the police and prison authorities to increase visits from their relatives from once every two weeks to once a week. “We want them to bring us more food. The prison food is not enough, and the arrival of high temperatures brings the risk of it spoiling.” This appears to be the “official” reason for the declared strike. After two days of striking, the police began a dialogue with the “rebels” to discuss possible solutions. But the dialogue did not manage to persuade everyone to end the strike and return to their cells. The rebels in cell number 16, the initiators of the protest, did not heed the words of the head of the Korçë police station. They continue to refuse the food offered by prison staff. Meanwhile, several hundred kilometers away, at the large Korydallos prison in Athens, fellow countrymen of the Korçë prisoners tried to overcome the barrier separating them from freedom. More than 30 Greek and Albanian prisoners came close to a spectacular escape. They cut through the iron bars and climbed down from the windows using knotted blankets, but warning shots forced them back into their cells. The Albanian prisoners began what the Greek press later called the Albanian-Greek war. The Albanians attacked the Greeks, who were armed with shovels. Only the intervention of Greek special forces and the prosecutor’s office of Përmet brought the Albanian uprising to an end. The reason for their revolt appears to have been their betrayal by the Greeks and the prison’s mistreatment of foreigners, mainly Albanians.

ELBASAN - Cholera continues to cause fear and anxiety. - Cholera continues to cause fear and anxiety. The hot weather and rising temperatures have brought back the horrific memories of last summer, especially in the areas hardest hit by the epidemic, the districts of Elbasan and Peqin. The council of the Elbasan, Peqin, Gramsh and Librazhd districts has held an extended meeting in recent days with representatives of local government in the areas it covers. The meeting discussed the situation and measures to prevent conditions conducive to cholera. “The Commission for the Fight Against Cholera has been re-established. This commission will monitor all irregularities in hygiene and street cleaning, garbage collection, the repair of broken toilets, the water-supply system, and the contamination of drinking water by the sewage canal. The situation has been described as alarming. The first measure will be to replenish the chlorine dose in drinking water. Every inspection of the network will include the village of Grykësh, where the epidemic wreaked havoc last year. It was in this village that cholera claimed many lives last year, setting a grim record in the epidemic’s black tally.”

From Durrës to Sarajevo TIRANA - Albania will open its borders to Bosnian refugees. Around 750 refugees will cross Albanian territory from east to west and then board ferries that will take them, via Croatia, back to their homeland, now devastated by a war that has been going on for several years. The news was confirmed to Gazeta Shqiptare by Muharrem Zejnul-lahu, Ambassador of the Republic of Bosnia in Tirana, who is personally handling the final preparations for his country’s refugees to travel from Skopje to Durrës and onward. Hundreds of refugees have been living, more or less since the beginning of the conflict, in Macedonian camps. “They are people who went there to escape the war,” says Zejnul-lahu, “but many of them were caught outside Bosnia by the war that broke out violently. Some had relatives or friends there, while others, when the news of the outbreak of war spread around the world, had been away from their homeland ever since, always hoping to return.” The Bosnian government has undertaken all the costs of the “journey of hope.” “But we have also taken other expenses into account, starting with the health services provided by humanitarian organizations and in J.” Skopje - Pogradec - Elbasan - Durrës: these will be the main points along the route taken by the buses carrying the Bosniaks on their journey toward the hope of peace. From Durrës to Split, and then some will continue to Sarajevo and the rest to Tuzla, in central Bosnia. “The Albanian side has promised us security throughout the journey on its territory,” said Fejzullahu, “and I hope everything will go well, as it did with the first group of Bosniaks who crossed Albania last September.”

A rare trial in court TIRANA - The daughter of the household has also ended up in the dock. The unusual case has been entered in the Tirana court archives and is to be heard during May. Although unbelievable and somewhat ironic, the indictment states that the defendant, 1. Kalemi, stole her parents’ house in collaboration with others. The defendant had returned to her home a few months after abandoning it to live with the other defendant, Artan Paço. He, too, had left his wife and children and had been devoted for three months to his new 23-year-old girlfriend. After three months away from the family hearth, longing for home, the young couple returned, apparently not for family reasons. Together with her lover, she gave an unwelcome surprise to those whose home it was. This difficult but not impossible-to-believe case is expected to be tried during May.

TIRANA — “SAMMCOM’s data on oil smuggling were wrong”; these were among the words spoken by Foreign Minister Albert Serreqi during an interpellation requested by Democratic Alliance deputies. Serreqi once again stressed that not only is the Albanian state not involved in oil smuggling with the former Yugoslavia, but it is also committed to observing the measures for enforcing the embargo imposed some time ago on Serbia and Montenegro—even despite the economic losses this causes us, the minister added.

BRIEFLY FROM THE DISTRICTS FIER — The residents of the city of Fier are threatened by a growing accumulation of infection. An untreated rubbish dump covering an area of 3–4 hectares on the outskirts of the city poses a risk. For some time, the cleaning and maintenance enterprise has been depositing rubbish there without burying it. The greatest danger is to families living in unauthorized buildings very close to this site, although the law stipulates that the nearest building must be at least 1,000 m from a rubbish dump.

KUKËS — A fine of 58 thousand lekë has been imposed on electricity violators in Kukës. There were 12 families and one private company which, in addition to the above fine, must also pay for 13 thousand kilowatt-hours of electricity as compensation to the electricity enterprise. The financial police have carried out inspections of more than 750 households and over 90 private entities that consume electricity.

ELBASAN — He plunged from the window of his dormitory room, with no chance of being saved. A. Liçi, from Shalezi in Ballsh, a second-year student at the University of Elbasan, reportedly remained at the fifth-floor window for half an hour before jumping in the early hours of the morning, giving his friends no chance to help him.

Here’s how to make money from privatization vouchers A rare trial in court Girl on trial for stealing a house Smuggling Serreqi: “The observer...”

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