Amnesty International: Camps in Albania, a reflection of an inhumane system

The suicide of 42-year-old Moroccan Hamid Badoui in a Turin prison has sparked fierce reactions and widespread debate in Italy, where the opposition and human rights organizations have targeted the Italian government for the inhumane treatment of migrants in the Gjadri camp, in Albania.

Badoui had stayed for about a month in the Gjadri camp, where he had been transferred as part of the migration agreement between Italy and Albania. Before he passed away, he had expressed to his lawyer the fear that he would be returned to Albania, stating: "Better in prison than in Shengjin."

Harsh criticism of the Meloni government

The Italian opposition has reacted in strong tones, accusing the government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of creating a system that violates human rights and treats migrants in a degrading way. Amnesty International Italy has also reacted through an official statement, condemning the "Meloni Model", calling it "a source of suffering and death."

Amnesty's statement underlines that camps like the one in Gjadra constitute extraterritorial structures with deep geographical isolation, where migrants face severe restrictions on legal and health access, as well as administrative detention used in a punitive manner, contrary to international norms.

'Degrading conditions and lack of humane care'

According to the organization, both in the Healthcare Centers in Italy (CPR), and in the new centers in Albania, people live in degrading conditions, without sufficient health care and in a constant atmosphere of abandonment and lack of information. Protests, self-harm and suicides – like Badoui's – for Amnesty are symptoms of a system aimed at isolation and punishment.

"Hamid Badoui's death is a direct consequence of a policy that uses fear and repression to (mis)manage human mobility," the statement said. Amnesty also criticizes yesterday's vote of confidence in the Italian Senate, which turned the new decree on immigrants into law, describing it as an action that formalizes a propaganda approach and contrary to fundamental human rights.

Request for investigation and termination of transfers to Albania

Amnesty International Italy calls for the immediate cessation of transfers to Albania, as well as for an independent investigation into institutional responsibilities related to Badoui's death and systemic violations in administrative detention centers.

The statement also calls for the opening of a public debate on the failure of administrative detention measures and the promotion of alternative models, based on waiting, justice and respect for human dignity.

"Every time a person ends his life to avoid participating in this system, we are dealing with a radical failure of public policies for migrants. Further support for the 'Albanian model' is complicity in a regime that produces exclusion, suffering and death," the statement concludes.