‘Live like a worm, or risk your life’: Desperate Albanians plot escape to the UK
In the backstreets of Albania’s capital city, Tirana, there is little light and even less hope.
The warren of alleyways we are being guided along is home to some of Albania‘s poorest people.
It is here Enkileta Ferra lives with her children and extended family.
The house is made up of two small rooms where they cook, eat and sleep.
She points to an outside tap where they get their water and explains it often doesn’t work.
Enkileta’s husband is in prison for stealing metal to earn money on the black market and her children pick through the city’s bins every day looking for cans they can sell.
The deprivation the family lives in is clear, the desperation is overwhelming.
“I want to see my children sheltered,” Ms Ferra sobs. “I don’t want to see them on the streets.
“I want to live well, just like everybody else. I don’t want them to hang around the bins and beg.”
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The outside tap often doesn’t work
Dreams of a tattoo artist
Her 16-year-old son, Kledji, shows me around.
It doesn’t take long – there’s one bedroom for seven people, he says.
On the table is a homemade tattoo pen that he’s put together from rubbish he has collected.
He dreams of being a tattoo artist, but mostly he dreams of escaping abroad to countries including the UK, like thousands of others already have.
“Why do you want to go to the UK?” I ask.
“It is different from here. There are jobs there. Everything is better there. The life is different. It’s not like here. Here is very poor. There are no jobs,” he says.
Albania is one of the poorest countries in Europe.
Six percent of people are under-nourished and one in 10 Albanians live in poverty, according to data from the German government.
That poverty is fuelling migration – both legal and illegal.
More than 12,000 came to UK in small boats
More than 12,000 Albanians have crossed the Channel in small boats to England this year, around 10,000 of them men.
“Every day we hear that people are trying to move outside the country,” Arber Hajdari, executive director of the Fundjave Ndryshe charity, says.
“One family needs to go for a better life. One needs to go for a better school. One for a better health centre, one for better work. They pay three or four times more than in Albania.”
The charity supports around 17,000 families across Albania with food boxes, supplies and accommodation.
Its staff regularly hear stories of people paying traffickers to help them get to the UK.
“In my opinion, the youth is the problem. They have a very big community outside Albania, also in England, and they are trying to work together,” Mr Hajdari says.
“The guys who are living in England, for example, are inviting their friends to go there because of the salaries. They [earn] a lot of money there compared to here.
“It’s a very big risk and I think the risk is taken because they can’t get the working visa to go like normal people.”
Arbër Hajdari
£20,000 to send her son to England
In a café in Tirana, we meet Maria, who negotiated with smugglers to send her son to the UK.
It is not her real name – she has changed it to avoid being identified by the authorities or the traffickers.
She looked for legal routes first, she says, but they were all blocked.
“I chose another path dealing with some people that used to smuggle people in dinghies,” Maria says.
Some asked me for an amount of £14,000, then the amount increased to £16,000 and recently it has gone to £20,000…. to send my son’s family to England I would have to sell the house, so I would be homeless.”
In the end, she couldn’t afford the fee and on this occasion, the trip was called off.
Others we met who have made it to the UK said that some smugglers offer deals where people can work off their debt illegally once they get to England.
The ‘Fundjave Ndryshe’ charity supports 17,000 families
Debt bondage agreements
Debt bondage agreements are hugely risky, opening people up to exploitation and extortion and all that after a perilous journey in a flimsy dinghy or hidden in the back of a truck.
But many say it’s worth it for the chance of a different future.
“You only live once,” Maria says. “Live like a worm or drown, because there is no other option, this is the way. Live like a worm, or risk your life. You have to put yourself in danger.”
On Monday, the UK and France signed a new deal to try to stop people crossing the Channel.
It included a 40% increase in officers on French beaches, £8m in extra funding and a new task force focused on reversing the recent rise in Albanian nationals and organised crime groups controlling the routes.
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Why are Albanians coming to the UK?
It sounds promising but from our conversations in Albania, it may not be enough.
While a crackdown on smugglers could disrupt the boats crossing the Channel, without hope and opportunities at home, Albania’s illegal migrants are likely to keep on coming.
World
Stock markets slump for second day running after Trump announces tariffs – in worst day for indexes since COVID
Worldwide stock markets have plummeted for the second day running as the fallout from Donald Trump’s global tariffs continues.
While European and Asian markets suffered notable falls, American indexes were the worst hit, with Wall Street closing to a sea of red on Friday following Thursday’s rout – the worst day in US markets since the COVID-19 pandemic.
As it happened: Worst week’s trading in five years
All three of the US’s major indexes were down by more than 5% at market close; The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 5.5%, the S&P 500 was 5.97% lower, and the Nasdaq Composite slipped 5.82%.
The Nasdaq was also 22% below its record-high set in December, which indicates a bear market.
Read more: What’s a bear market?
Ever since the US president announced the tariffs on Wednesday evening, analysts estimate that around $4.9trn (£3.8trn) has been wiped off the value of the global stock market.
Mr Trump has remained unapologetic as the markets struggle, posting in all-caps on Truth Social before the markets closed that “only the weak will fail”.
The UK’s leading stock market, the FTSE 100, also suffered its worst daily drop in more than five years, closing 4.95% down, a level not seen since March 2020.
And the Japanese exchange Nikkei 225 dropped by 2.75% at end of trading, down 20% from its recent peak in July last year.
US indexes had the worst day of trading since the COVID-19 pandemic. Pic: Reuters
Trump holds trade deal talks – reports
It comes as a source told CNN that Mr Trump has been in discussions with Vietnamese, Indian and Israeli representatives to negotiate bespoke trade deals that could alleviate proposed tariffs on those countries before a deadline next week.
The source told the US broadcaster the talks were being held in advance of the reciprocal levies going into effect next week.
Vietnam faced one of the highest reciprocal tariffs announced by the US president this week, with 46% rates on imports. Israeli imports face a 17% rate, and Indian goods will be subject to 26% tariffs.
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Do Trump’s tariffs add up?
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China – hit with 34% tariffs on imported goods – has also announced it will issue its own levy of the same rate on US imports.
Mr Trump said China “played it wrong” and “panicked – the one thing they cannot afford to do” in another all-caps Truth Social post earlier on Friday.
Later, on Air Force One, the US president told reporters that “the beauty” of the tariffs is that they allow for negotiations, referencing talks with Chinese company ByteDance on the sale of social media app TikTok.
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Tariffs: Xi hits back at Trump
He said: “We have a situation with TikTok where China will probably say, ‘We’ll approve a deal, but will you do something on the tariffs?’
“The tariffs give us great power to negotiate. They always have.”
World
Financial markets were always going to respond to Trump tariffs but they’re also battling with another problem
South Korea’s constitutional court has confirmed the dismissal of President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was impeached in December after declaring martial law.
His decision to send troops onto the streets led to the country’s worst political crisis in decades.
The court ruled to uphold the impeachment saying the conservative leader “violated his duty as commander-in-chief by mobilising troops” when he declared martial law.
The president was also said to have taken actions “beyond the powers provided in the constitution”.
Demonstrators stayed overnight near the constitutional court. Pic: AP
Supporters and opponents of the president gathered in their thousands in central Seoul as they awaited the ruling.
The 64-year-old shocked MPs, the public and international allies in early December when he declared martial law, meaning all existing laws regarding civilians were suspended in place of military law.
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The court was under heavy police security guard ahead of the announcement. Pic: AP
After suddenly declaring martial law, Mr Yoon sent hundreds of soldiers and police officers to the National Assembly.
He has argued that he sought to maintain order, but some senior military and police officers sent there have told hearings and investigators that Mr Yoon ordered them to drag out politicians to prevent an assembly vote on his decree.
His presidential powers were suspended when the opposition-dominated assembly voted to impeach him on 14 December, accusing him of rebellion.
The unanimous verdict to uphold parliament’s impeachment and remove Mr Yoon from office required the support of at least six of the court’s eight justices.
South Korea must hold a national election within two months to find a new leader.
Lee Jae-myung, leader of the main liberal opposition Democratic Party, is the early favourite to become the country’s next president, according to surveys.
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