219 Albanians who overstayed their visa-free stay of three months in France or filed unfounded asylum applications have been taken back to Albania, with the initiative of the French authorities.
In two separate flights that took place on Wednesday and Friday last week, 219 Albanians have been repatriated to their home country, 110 of which were repatriated from Metz, France, after they had overstayed the allowed 3-month-period.
Another 109 persons were sent back on board a charter on Friday from Lyon, France after their asylum applications were rejected by the French asylum centres. Among the repatriated Albanians, there were also family members with children.
At the same time, another 19 Albanians have been repatriated from Germany for the same reasons, this week.
The Albanian Ministry of the Interior has reminded its citizens that their asylum applications cannot be accepted in any of the Eu member states, as Albania is categorized as a safe country. Whereas the Albanian police have however pointed out that repatriations were voluntary.
Last March, a total of 49 Albanians were repatriated from France and Luxemburg due to the rejection of their asylum requests, SchengenVisaInfo.com reported at the time. Five of the Albanians were repatriated from Luxemburg and the other 44 from France.
Even though Albania is a country located in Europe, it is not yet a Schengen Zone member nor a European Union country. Still, due to a visa liberalization agreement with the EU block, Albanian passport holders can travel visa-free to the Schengen Area for a few years now. Many use the opportunity to illegally remain and work in the block.
As a result, Albania was among one of the ten countries with the highest number of asylum seekers in 2019, ranking along with Iraq, Pakistan, Iran and Nigeria.
In 2018, a number of 23,400 Albanian citizens were denied entry into the Schengen Zone, out of a total 471,200 non-EU travellers who were turned back at a Schengen port of entry, due to suspicious entry reasons
About half of the rejections for Albanian travellers were made at the border with Greece. 11,075 that attempted to enter Greece were turned back. The second country with the highest rate of rejected Albanian travellers is Croatia, with 2,670 rejections, followed by the United Kingdom with 1,455 rejections and France with 1,450. /Schengenvisainfo news
