‘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.”
Read more from Albania:
‘We are worthy’ say Albanians smuggled into UK
Man undeterred despite being deported home
The border region where gun-runners and people smugglers enter EU
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.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
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.
The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.
Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.
He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.
Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.
Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.
The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.
Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.
The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.
(L-R) Raffaele Sollecito, Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. File pic: AP
Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.
Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.
World
IDF blames ‘technical error’ after Gaza officials say children collecting water killed in strike
The Israeli military says it missed its intended target after Gaza officials said 10 Palestinians – including six children – were killed in a strike at a water collection point.
Another 17 people were wounded in the strike on a water distribution point in Nuseirat refugee camp, said Ahmed Abu Saifan, an emergency physician at Al Awda Hospital.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it had intended to hit an Islamic Jihad militant but a “technical error with the munition” had caused the missile to fall “dozens of metres from the target”.
The IDF said the incident is under review, adding that it “works to mitigate harm to uninvolved civilians as much as possible” and “regrets any harm to uninvolved civilians”.
A wounded child is treated after the strike on the water collection point. Pic: Reuters
Officials at Al Awda Hospital said it received 10 bodies after the Israeli strike on the water collection point and six children were among the dead.
Ramadan Nassar, who lives in the area, said around 20 children and 14 adults were lined up Sunday morning to fill up water.
When the strike occurred, everyone ran and some, including those who were severely injured, fell to the ground, he said.
Blood stains are seen on containers at the water collection point. Pic: Reuters
In total, 19 people were killed in Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, local health officials said.
Two women and three children were among nine killed after an Israeli strike on a home in the central town of Zawaida, officials at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said.
Israel has claimed it hit more than 150 targets in the besieged enclave in the past day.
The latest strikes come after the Israel military opened fire near an aid centre in Rafah on Saturday. The Red Cross said 31 people were killed.
The IDF has said it fired “warning shots” near the aid distribution site but it was “not aware of injured individuals” as a result.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Palestinians shot while seeking aid, says paramedic
The war in Gaza started in response to Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 people and saw about 250 taken hostage.
More than 58,000 Palestinians have since been killed, with more than half being women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.
Read more:
Palestinians shot while seeking aid, says paramedic
Dozens of MPs call for UK to recognise Palestine as state
US President Donald Trump has said he is closing in on another ceasefire agreement that would see more hostages released and potentially wind down the war.
But after two days of talks this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, there were no signs of a breakthrough, as a new sticking point emerged over the deployment of Israeli troops during the truce.
Hamas still holds 50 hostages, with fewer than half of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
World
‘At least 59 killed’ in Gaza after Israeli military opens fire near aid centre and carries out strikes
At least 59 Palestinians have reportedly been killed after the Israeli military opened fire near an aid centre in Gaza and carried out strikes across the territory.
The Red Cross, which operates a field hospital in Rafah, said 25 people were “declared dead upon arrival” and “six more died after admittance” following gunfire near an aid distribution centre in the southern Gazan city.
The humanitarian organisation added that it also received 132 patients “suffering from weapon-related injuries” after the incident.
The Red Cross said: “The overwhelming majority of these patients sustained gunshot wounds, and all responsive individuals reported they were attempting to access food distribution sites.”
The organisation said the number of deaths marks the hospital’s “largest influx of fatalities” since it began operations in May last year.
The IDF has said it fired “warning shots” near the aid distribution site but it was “not aware of injured individuals” as a result.
It said in a statement: “Earlier today, several suspects were identified approaching IDF troops operating in the Rafah area, posing a threat to the troops, hundreds of metres from the aid distribution site.
“IDF troops operated in order to prevent the suspects from approaching them and fired warning shots.”
Palestinians mourn a loved one following the incident near the aid centre. Pic: Reuters
Mother’s despair over shooting
Somia Alshaar told Sky News her 17-year-old son Nasir was shot dead while visiting the aid centre after she told him not to go.
She said: “He went to get us tahini so we could eat.
“He went to get flour. He told me ‘mama, we don’t have tahini. Today I’ll bring you flour. Even if it kills me, I will get you flour’.
“He left the house and didn’t return. They told me at the hospital: your son…’Oh God, oh Lord’.”
Asked where her son was shot, she replied: “In the chest. Yes, in the chest.”
Somia Alshaar, pictured with her daughter, says her son was shot dead. Pic: Reuters
‘A policy of mass murder’
Hassan Omran, a paramedic with Gaza’s ministry of health, told Sky News after the incident that humanitarian aid centres in Gaza are now “centres of mass death”.
Speaking in Khan Younis, he said: “Today, there were more than 150 injuries and more than 20 martyrs at the aid distribution centres… the Israeli occupation deliberately kills and commits genocide. The Israeli occupation is carrying out a policy of mass murder.
“They call people to come get their daily food, and then, when citizens arrive at these centres, they are killed in cold blood.
“All the victims have gunshot wounds to the head and chest, meaning the enemy is committing these crimes deliberately.”
Israel has rejected genocide accusations and denies targeting civilians.
Two boys mourn their brother at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Pic: Reuters
‘Lies being peddled’
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the controversial US and Israeli-backed group which operates the distribution centre near Rafah, said: “Hamas is claiming there was violence at our aid distribution sites today. False.
“Once again, there were no incidents at or in the immediate vicinity of our sites.
“But that’s not stopping some from spreading the lies being peddled by ‘officials’ at the Hamas-controlled Nasser Hospital.”
The Red Cross said its field hospital in Rafah has recorded more than 250 fatalities and treated more than 3,400 “weapon-wounded patients” since new food distribution sites were set up in Gaza on 27 May.
Read more:
‘At least 798 killed’ at Gaza aid points
’10 children killed’ waiting for Gaza health clinic to open
Israel says permanent ceasefire ‘questionable’
Palestinians inspect the wreckage after an Israeli airstrike in Deir al Balah. Pic: AP
It comes after four children and two women were among at least 13 people who died in Deir al Balah, in central Gaza, after Israeli strikes pounded the area starting late on Friday, officials in Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the territory said.
Fifteen others died in Israeli airstrikes in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, according to Nasser Hospital.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not responded to a request for comment on the reported deaths.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Israeli has been carrying out attacks in Gaza since Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages on 7 October 2023.
Hamas still holds 50 hostages, with fewer than half of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.
US President Donald Trump has said he is closing in on another ceasefire agreement that would see more hostages released and potentially wind down the war.
But after two days of talks this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, there were no signs of a breakthrough.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
The latest fatalities in Gaza comes as a 20-year-old Palestinian-American man was beaten to death by settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Friday, the Palestinian Health ministry said.
Sayafollah Musallet, also known as Saif, was killed during a confrontation between Palestinians and settlers in Sinjil, north of Ramallah, the ministry said.
A second man, Hussein Al-Shalabi, 23, died after being shot in the chest.
Mr Musallet’s family, from Tampa Florida, has called on the US State Department to lead an “immediate investigation”.
A State Department spokesperson said it was aware of the incident but it had no further comment “out of respect for the privacy of the family and loved ones” of the reported victim.
The Israeli military said the confrontation broke out after Palestinians threw rocks at Israelis, lightly injuring them.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike