SHENGJIN: An Italian navy ship on Saturday took back to Italy the first 12 migrants from newly opened asylum processing centers in Albania following a court decision in Rome.
The court ruling on Friday represents an early stumbling block to a five-year deal between Italy and Albania for Tirana to host 3,000 migrants per month picked up by the Italian coast guard. They will be vetted for possible asylum in Italy or to be sent back to their countries.
Italian Premier Minister Giorgia Meloni has hailed it as a new “model” to handle illegal migration.
The court in Rome rejected the detention of 12 of the migrants, arguing they cannot be sent back to their countries or origin — Bangladesh and Egypt — because the court did not deem them to be safe enough.
The Italian navy ship took the 12 from the port of Shengjin, 66 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of the capital Tirana. After arriving there this week, the four other migrants had already been rejected by center staff, two as vulnerable after undergoing health checks and two for being minors.
Each migrant’s detention must be reviewed by special migration courts in Italy under Italian law.
Meloni slammed the judges following the ruling, and said that deeming countries such as Bangladesh and Egypt unsafe means that virtually all migrants would be barred from the Albania program, making it unworkable. Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said the government would appeal the ruling.
Speaking to reporters during a trip to Lebanon, Meloni said she would convene a Cabinet meeting Monday to discuss the issue.
“We’ll meet to approve some norms that will allow us to overcome this obstacle,” Meloni said. “I believe it’s up to the government and not magistrates to establish which countries can be considered safe.”
Although Bangladesh and Egypt are not at war or facing any large refugee crises, the Rome judges said their decision was based on recent international rulings that consider discrimination or persecution in even a part of a country as grounds for such a determination.
Italy has agreed to welcome those migrants who are granted asylum, while those whose applications are rejected face deportation directly from Albania.
The controversial agreement to outsource the housing of asylum-seekers to a non-EU member country has been hailed by some countries that, like Italy, are experiencing a high level of migrant arrivals.
The agreement was endorsed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as an example of “out-of-box thinking” in tackling the issue of migration into the European Union.
Human rights organizations considered it as setting a dangerous precedent.
First migrants sent to Albania for processing are returned to Italy
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First migrants sent to Albania for processing are returned to Italy
Volcanic eruptions may have brought Black Death to Europe, say new study
- Study says volcanic eruptions in 1345 caused temperatures to drop, leading to crop failure and causing famine
- This led Italy to have ships bring grain from central Asia, where the bubonic plague is thought to have first emerged
- The plague killed tens of millions of people and wiped out up to 60 percent of the population in parts of Europe
PARIS: Previously unknown volcanic eruptions may have kicked off an unlikely series of events that brought the Black Death — the most devastating pandemic in human history — to the shores of medieval Europe, new research has revealed.
The outbreak of bubonic plague known as the Black Death killed tens of millions and wiped out up to 60 percent of the population in parts of Europe during the mid-14th century.
How it came to Europe — and why it spread so quickly on such a massive scale — have long been debated by historians and scientists.
Now two researchers studying tree rings have suggested that a volcanic eruption may have been the first domino to fall.
By analizing the tree rings from the Pyrenees mountain range in Spain, the pair established that southern Europe had unusually cold and wet summers from 1345 to 1347.
Comparing climate data with written accounts from the time, the researchers demonstrated that temperatures likely dropped because there was less sunlight following one or more volcanic eruptions in 1345.
The change in climate ruined harvests, leading to failed crops and the beginnings of famine.
Fortunately — or so it seemed — “powerful Italian city states had established long-distance trade routes across the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, allowing them to activate a highly efficient system to prevent starvation,” said Martin Bauch, a historian at Germany’s Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe.
“But ultimately, these would inadvertently lead to a far bigger catastrophe,” he said in a statement.
Deadly stowaways
The city states of Venice, Genoa and Pisa had ships bring grain from the Mongols of the Golden Horde in central Asia, which is where the plague is thought to have first emerged.
Previous research has suggested that these grain ships brought along unwelcome passengers: rats carrying fleas infected with Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague.
Between 25 and 50 million people are estimated to have died over the next six years.
While the story encompasses natural, demographic, economic and political events in the area, it was ultimately the previously unidentified volcanic eruption that paved the way for one of history’s greatest disasters, the researchers argued.
“Although the coincidence of factors that contributed to the Black Death seems rare, the probability of zoonotic diseases emerging under climate change and translating into pandemics is likely to increase in a globalized world,” study co-author Ulf Buentgen of Cambridge University in the UK said in a statement.
“This is especially relevant given our recent experiences with Covid-19.”
The study was published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment on Thursday.
