Brussels, more asylum seekers from Albania

Belgium is facing a constantly increasing number of asylum seekers from Albania. The General Director of Emigration at the Belgian Kingdom, during a press conference in Tirana, declared that the purpose of his visit was the alarming increased number of applications coming from Albania.

He declared that after the first seven months that went without any requests, now there has started a great flux of people pretending that they are facing a blood feud conflict in Albania. 480 people have applied for asylum in September and October, presenting documents that show that they are in a blood feud conflict in Albania.

The Belgian official declared that there is a network of people living in Belgium who release falsified documents for Albanians mainly from Shkoder and Kukes, which is actually a fraud, because the convince them that in Belgium they will be sheltered for free by the Belgian government, and that they will receive a job and monthly payment. He categorically excluded that these people will receive any asylum in Belgium.

Within one day, the asylum offices in Belgium have received 50 requests, all of them from Shkoder, with the motivation that they are in involved in a blood feud in Albania.

This number has been considered as alarming by the Belgian authorities, which have sent in Shkoder the General Director of Emigration and Asylum. He warned that the asylum requests will endanger the visa regime for all Albanian citizens.

The Belgian official asked the help of local authorities for stopping this phenomenon, which is made by people who receive fake documents by Blood Feud Reconciliation Associations and the local administration.

“The information I received from Brussels today, indicate that only today, before noon, 50 Albanian asylum seekers have applied at the offices. Why have I come to Shkoder? Because most of them come from this district. I came here to meet the local authorities, because the people who aim to travel to Belgium with the purpose to apply for asylum, they have the right to take the necessary information, because we are convinced that these people receive fake information from here in Albania. Every asylum request is being reviewed with an accelerated pace, and for all requests that receive a negative answer, the applicants will be forced to return to Albania. If they will not return on their own, they will be isolated in a closed center. An these consequences will happen only because these people are victims of fake information from the travel agencies and other persons that organize the fraudulent schemes, telling people that if they go in Belgium, they will receive a job and a payment, which is completely untrue”, declared the General Director of Emigration in Belgium.

During the first months of the visa liberalization, there was no problem from Albania, but after August, the situation in Belgium has become concerning. Only in the last two months there have been 161 requests from Albania, which have been considered as fraudulent only for emigrating from Albania.