An Italian coast guard boat carrying migrants rescued at sea passes near a tourist boat on Lampedusa, Sicily, Italy, on September 18, 2023. [Yara Nardi/Reuters]
An agreement allowing Italy to build reception camps in Albania for thousands of migrants arriving by sea raises concerns about arbitrary detention and living conditions, the UN human rights chief said on Thursday. .
“Deportation to Albania for asylum and return procedures raises important human rights issues, particularly freedom from arbitrary detention, proper asylum application procedures, including screening and identification, and living conditions,” UN Human Rights. High Commissioner Volker Turk said this in a speech to the Italian Senate.
“Italy’s legal obligations under human rights and refugee law must not be undermined,” he said, adding that similar arrangements were causing “huge suffering and damage” in other countries, without naming them. There wasn’t.
Italy’s right-wing government of Giorgia Meloni, which has taken a hard line against illegal immigration, has struggled to stem the flow of migrants from Africa.
The plan, announced in November, involves EU member Italy opening two camps in non-EU member Albania in the spring. One will screen migrants upon arrival, and the second will hold them while their asylum applications are processed, with the hope of processing up to 3,000 applications a month.
The plan sparked criticism from human rights groups and comparisons to the British government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, which was ruled illegal by the UK Supreme Court. But Brussels later said Italy’s plan did not violate European Union law.
Mr. Turk also criticized Italy’s existing immigration policy, saying the mass detention of asylum seekers was “problematic.” In comments that appeared to refer to Italy’s targeting of rescue vessels in the Mediterranean, he said saving lives at sea is a “human rights obligation and should never be criminalized or prosecuted.” . [Reuters]