World

‘Live like a worm, or risk your life’: Desperate Albanians plot escape to the UK

Published

3 years ago

November 21, 2022

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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.”

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.”

£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.

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.

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

British-Israeli soldier killed while fighting in Gaza, reports say

Published

5 hours ago

June 29, 2025

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British-Israeli soldier killed while fighting in Gaza, reports say

A British-Israeli soldier has been killed while fighting in Gaza, Israeli media reports said.

He was named locally as Sergeant Yisrael Natan Rosenfeld, 20, from the city of Ra’anana.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said it is “looking into reports that an IDF soldier who died in combat in Gaza is a British national”.

The IDF soldier, who served in the 601st Combat Engineering Battalion, was killed by an explosive device on Sunday, the Times of Israel reported.

The paper said Mr Rosenfeld moved to Israel from London with his family 11 years ago.

More than 860 Israeli soldiers have been killed since Israel’s war against Hamas began on 7 October 2023, more than 400 of them during the fighting in Gaza.

The war began when the militant group launched an attack on Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostage.

Israel’s offensive in Gaza has devastated the enclave and killed more than 56,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count, but says more than half of the dead are women and children.

It came as Donald Trump called for progress in ceasefire talks in the war between Israel and Hamas.

“MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!!” the US president wrote on social media on Sunday.

On Friday Mr Trump raised expectations by claiming there could be an agreement within the next week.

World

Pictures reveal inside of Bayesian sunken superyacht after it was resurfaced for full examination

Published

16 hours ago

June 29, 2025

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Pictures reveal inside of Bayesian sunken superyacht after it was resurfaced for full examination

The inside of the superyacht that sank off the coast of Sicily almost a year ago has been seen for the first time after it was resurfaced.

British billionaire Mike Lynch, 59, his daughter Hannah, 18, and five others died after the 56-metre (184ft) Bayesian sank off Porticello on 19 August 2024.

Images reveal what the inside of the British-flagged vessel looks like now – after it was resurfaced and placed in a manufactured steel cradle in Termini Imerese.

In one picture, a lounge area can be seen, complete with sofas and other furniture, while another shows the hatch down to the lower deck.

Now the boat is back on land, a balloon-like instrument will be used to lift its 72m (236ft) mast after it was cut off with a remote-controlled tool to rest on the seabed.

While salvage workers continue a “full sweep” of the ocean floor nearby, a full examination of the yacht will look at what could have been done to prevent the tragedy.

The UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) will then publish a report into its investigation.

The family of the Bayesian chef Recaldo Thomas, who was among those who died, says “lessons need to be learned”.

In a statement through the Thomas family lawyers Keystone Law, they said they want the investigation to “establish the truth of what happened” and “bring those responsible to justice”.

Simon Graves, an MAIB investigator, said of the investigation previously: “When the wreck is brought ashore, we’ll be completing a full examination of the wreck and we’ll be finding out all of the elements that might have contributed to the safety of the vessel.”

Things like the vessel’s “escape routes” will be included in the final report, Mr Graves added.

“Once we get access to the vessel we’ll be able to tell a fuller picture of activities on board and the sequence of events.”

A UK inquest will look at the deaths of Mr Lynch, Miss Lynch, Morgan Stanley banker Jonathan Bloomer, 70, and his wife Judy, 71, who were all British nationals.

US lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda also died.

Fifteen people, including Mr Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares, were rescued.

World

Riot police clash with protesters calling for end to Serbian president’s rule

Published

22 hours ago

June 29, 2025

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Riot police clash with protesters calling for end to Serbian president's rule

Serbian riot police have clashed with anti-government protesters calling for snap elections and an end to the 12-year rule of President Aleksandar Vucic.

The protest by tens of thousands of demonstrators was held in Belgrade on Saturday after months of persistent demonstrations led by Serbia‘s university students that have rattled Mr Vucic’s grip on power.

The crowd chanted “We want elections!” as they filled the capital’s central Slavija Square and several streets around it.

Students gave speeches. One, who didn’t give her name, said: “Elections are a clear way out of the social crisis caused by the deeds of the government, which is undoubtedly against the interests of their own people.

“Today, on June 28 2025, we declare the current authorities illegitimate.”

Tensions were high before and during the gathering.

Riot police had been deployed around government buildings, parliament and nearby Pionirski Park, where hundreds of Mr Vucic’s loyalists from across the country have been camping for months.

As the protest ended in the evening, some demonstrators threw bottles, rocks and flares at the police who were preventing the crowd from approaching Pionirski Park and confronting Mr Vucic’s backers.

Skirmishes between riot officers and groups of protesters lasted for several hours, with police firing tear gas to disperse crowds in several locations across Belgrade’s city centre.

Police detained several dozen protesters, while six officers were reported injured in the clashes, Dragan Vasiljevic, the director of police, told a news conference late on Saturday.

Responding to the violence, President Vucic said in an Instagram post: “Serbia always wins in the end.”

University students have been a key force behind nationwide demonstrations that started after a renovated rail station canopy collapsed, killing 16 people in November last year.

Many blamed the concrete roof crash on government corruption and negligence in state infrastructure projects, leading to recurring protests.

President Vucic and his right-wing Serbian Progressive Party have repeatedly refused the demand for an early parliamentary vote and accused protesters of planning to spur violence on orders from abroad, which they have not specified.

A former extreme nationalist, Mr Vucic has become increasingly authoritarian since coming to power more than a decade ago. He formally says he wants Serbia to join the European Union, but critics say he has stifled democratic freedoms and strengthened ties with Russia and China.

While demonstrations have shrunk in recent weeks, the large showing for Saturday’s rally suggested that the resolve persists, despite relentless pressure and after nearly eight months of almost daily protests.