(AP) Italian authorities on Friday transferred 40 migrants with no permission to remain in the country to Italian-run migration detention centers in Albania.
It was the first time a European Union country sent rejected migrants to a nation outside the EU that is neither their own nor a country they had transited on their journey, migration experts said.
A military ship with the migrants departed the Italian port of Brindisi and arrived hours later in the Albanian port of Shengjin, about 65 kilometers (40 miles) northeast of the capital, Tirana. The migrants were seen being transferred in buses and minivans under heavy security to an Italian-run center in Shengjin, where they will be processed before being transferred to a second center in Gjader, also run by Italian authorities.
