TIRANA, April 13 – Police in southern Gjirokastra county detained another group of about 30 Syrian refugees near the border with Greece.
The refugees were accompanied to police headquarters for background checks and then deported back to Greece, based on an agreement with the neighboring country.
Albanian police said they are investigating a network of traffickers that moves the refugees through Albania, which is not their final destination.
Syrian refugees use Albania as a transit country for Montenegro, where they then move on to Western Europe.
But authorities have increasingly worried that some refugees are now being transported by sea to Italy from Albania.
Italy announced this week that police arrested two traffickers who had used a speedboat to get Syrians from Vlora to the Bari region.
Albania’s ban on speedboats expired two years ago. It served as the primary tool by which Albania eradicated the sea trafficking that had taken the lives of hundreds through the previous two decades.
