Italy has once again transferred migrants to Albania, in spite of previous legal defeats, after an Italian Navy ship carrying 49 refugees arrived in the port of the Albanian city of Shëngjin.

The Italian News Agency ANSA reported on Tuesday.

The asylum applications for these individuals who had travelled for days across the Mediterranean are now set to be decided in the reception centre in Albania.

Italy is the first European Union state to establish camps outside the EU to decide on migrants’ asylum applications.

The Albanian model of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government is controversial.

Other European governments, however, are closely monitoring the approach.

The first two attempts in October and November failed in the courts.

Italian authorities picked up migrants in the central Mediterranean and transported them to reception centres in Albania.

On both occasions, the people ultimately had to be brought back to Italy after judges ruled that they did not come from safe countries of origin.

Tuesday’s 49 migrants are men from Bangladesh, Egypt, Gambia, and Ivory Coast.

Before their journey to Albania, they were stopped on a boat in the Mediterranean on their way to Europe, off the Italian Mediterranean island of Lampedusa. 

(dpa/NAN)