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| Rovena Voda speaking on Rinas runway |
The plane with the Albanian citizens on board landed on the Rinas Airport runway from Metz Airport, France.
The were taken all the measures by the Albanian and French police on this operation to be as perfect as possible.
Deputy Interior Minister of Albania, Rovena Voda and Director of the Department for Border and Migration in the State Police were present during the repatriation of the 62 Albanian citizens who had sought asylum in France
Voda stated that those citizens who are caught out of the Schengen movement rules will not be allowed to move freely into the Schengen area.
"I call upon all citizens of Albania to respect the rules of the free movement in the Schengen area. That's for some reason. At first for them, for the fact that it is a great cost for them to travel to these countries, leaving everything behind and then returning and resuming from the beginning..."said Voda, urged Albanians to choose the path of safe migration to European Union countries and beyond.
"I have to inform you that in the framework of the visit of the Albanian Interior Minister in France some time ago, the French Minister of Interior agreed that the repatriation procedures would be more frequent. So please the Albanian citizens, it is their right to migrate, but to choose the path of safe migration ", underlined the Interior Minister of Albania, Rovena Voda.
Director of the Department for Border and Migration at State Police, Eduart Merkaj, noted that during this 5-month period, the repatriation flights have increased not only with France, but with many other EU countries, strengthening further the cooperation, in terms of exchanging more detailed and real-time information.
The Border Police has also strengthened the measures to prevent the border crossings in order to seek asylum in EU countries.
On the other hand, during a police operation in Albania against the smuggling of clandestines from different countries, eight persons, seven Albanian citizens and one Turkish citizen were arrested and detained.
In the announcement by the General Directorate of the Albanian Police it is said that the arrests were carried out in Elbasan on the basis of information that a criminal group operated on the Greek-Albania and Albania-Montenegro green border, for the transit of clandestines coming from Syria, Turkey and Iraq to the European Union countries.
"Eight members of the criminal group were arrested and detained, among them the group leader, a Turkish citizen who, in co-operation with each other, acted as a criminal group, organizing the transportation of foreign nationals from the green border with the Greek state towards Tirana and later in the direction of Montenegro," reads the announcement.
According to police, the clandestines paid significant amounts of euros for the purpose of illegal border crossing.
The detainees are charged with the criminal offense of "Helping the Illegal Crossing of Borders".