Migrants who were being held in Albania were sent to Italy after a court decision

After Rome’s plans to lodge migrants hauled up at sea outside the EU were thwarted by a court judgment, an Italian coastguard vessel picked up migrants detained at Albanian receiving centers and transported them to Italy on Saturday.

The Italian government said Friday it would challenge the court’s ruling that refugees in Albanian receiving facilities should be sent to Italy, vowing to continue Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s hallmark scheme to redirect asylum-seekers elsewhere.

The government’s response will be decided at a cabinet meeting on Monday.

An Italian navy vessel transported the migrants to Albania earlier this week. Four of the sixteen that were initially there have already been sent to Italy due to health concerns or the fact that they were minors.

According to the court, the 12 migrants in the new Gjader facility in Albania were forced to return to Italy since their home countries of Bangladesh and Egypt could not be deemed safe.

The migrants were transported to a receiving center after disembarking from the coastguard ship at the port city of Bari, southern Italy, just after 1300 GMT.

At a news conference on Friday, Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi expressed his confidence that the court’s ruling will be overturned and stated that the government would appeal all the way to the Supreme Court if needed.

Italy can only send migrants to Albania from a list of 22 countries that it deems safe.

These include Egypt and Bangladesh, but the Rome court stated that they had “a right to be brought to Italy” and that a recent decision by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on the subject rendered it difficult to hold them in Albania.

Speaking to reporters while in Lebanon, Meloni described the ruling as “prejudiced” and stated that her government should decide which nations are secure and which are not. She also indicated that she will create new regulations to deal with the matter.

When the Italian coast guard vessel picked up the migrants early Saturday at the Albanian port of Shengjin, locals were taken aback by their abrupt departure.

“They left already?” The owner of a coffee business commented. I feel bad for them. For a better life, they are making this sacrifice. The same thing has been done by us.