Communications expert from Tirana tells BIRN that Britain must ensure returnees’ ‘dignity, safety, and respectful treatment’, after a UK report said some Albanians returning voluntarily were kept waiting for weeks in detention.
Albanian returnees from the UK face “notable challenges throughout the process” of returning, after being deported from UK, “despite their own willingness to return”, Edlira Gjoni, a communications expert based in Tirana, told BIRN.
“Considering that these people are not detainees but have instead volunteered to return, there should have been even more reason to ensure their rights to dignity, safety, and respectful treatment. And finally, the uncertainties surrounding departure and arrival times is unacceptable, as it adds to the distress and doubts or the returnees, and it could disrupt their ability to remain calm and functional for a period of time,” Gjoni told BIRN.
She refered to a report by the UK Chief Inspector of Prisons, “Detainees under escort: Inspection of escort and removals to Albania”, published in December 2023, which highlighted the problems that irregular migrants from Albania have faced during their removal from the UK.
“[One] removal involved 73 Albanian detainees being taken from London Stansted to Tirana, most of them voluntarily. Inspectors found that too many of them waited in detention for several weeks despite being willing to go, and the information-sharing about vulnerability was not good enough,” the report noted.
“However, the operation was generally well organised and the improvements in operational practices that we had noted at previous inspections had, with a small number of exceptions, been sustained,” it added.
Gjoni said another concern was “the impact it can have on other Albanians who might want to return on a volunteer basis”.
“Immigrants will share their experience and word spreads fast. Hearing about the not-so-dignifying realities of voluntary return from those who have experienced it firsthand may influence the decision-making for other Albanians considering return” she told BIRN.
The issue of irregular migration of Albanians to the UK was made more evident during the summer of 2022, where migrants started to use small boats to reach the country. Since then, the Albanian and UK governments have signed an agreement for their fast return to Albania.
According to the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, some 16,000 Albanians applied for asylum in Britain in 2022; roughly 12,000 of those arrived by small boats across the Channel.
British authorities say the deal struck between UK PM Rishi Sunak and Albania’s Edi Rama at the end of 2022 has since cut the flow by 90 per cent.
Albanian Police did not answer BIRN’s questions about the total number of Albanians who have returned from UK according to the inter-governmental agreement.
