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A meme posted by Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama that mocked the Italians who come on vacation to our country by comparing them to the Albanian immigrants of 3 decades ago has raised a strong controversy beyond the Adriatic.
With the ease that often characterizes him, Rama published a photo of the ship "Vlora" which in August 1991 left with about 20 thousand Albanians fleeing poverty, comparing it with the influx of Italians who today fill the ferries to rest in Albania. "...and wait, wait, you haven't seen anything yet" - was Rama's expression that accompanied the photo.
If in Albania this went without a fuss, in Italy all the prestigious agencies and media have devoted their front pages to it.
In Italy, the ANSA news agency was the first to publish it, pointing out that only the day before was the 32nd anniversary of the painful and much-discussed exodus. While TG Com considers Rama's post ironic. The harshest is "Corriere Della Sera" which in a long article also responds ironically to Rama.
"The boom of Italian tourists in Albania, who flee to the beautiful country due to the prices considered too high, has been liked so much by the government of Tirana, that Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama remembers through social networks how times have changed - and the flow has been reversed - since the 1990s until today.
However, the Albanian Prime Minister's post has not been positively received by everyone. There are those who, for example, remember that immigration is a phenomenon that has caused - and still causes - thousands of deaths a year. A fate that the Albanians themselves have had in the past" - recalls "Corriere Della Sera".
Even "La Repubblica" finds it inappropriate to compare tourists with immigrants. "On August 8, 1991, about 18,000 Albanians took refuge in Italy in the hope of finding a better future there, while in 2023 Italians escaped high prices by spending their holidays in Albania. And if we still talk about the exodus, the reasons are obviously different, but there are those who find it reasonable to connect the events through a photo collage and then publish it on a social network" - writes "La Repubblica".
More than 3 decades ago, over 20 thousand Albanian immigrants invaded the ship "Vlora" that had brought sugar from Cuba to the port of Durrës. After 36 hours of grueling travel they arrived in Bari where the Italian authorities locked the migrants in the stadium under scorching heat and in scandalous conditions. A few days later, most of them returned, while a very small part managed to escape./ Lapsi.al
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