Albania Refugees Will Go to Italy

ROME â€”  Thousands of Albanians seeking asylum in foreign embassies in Tirana will be ferried to Italy under an agreement being worked out between Albania and the United Nations, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

“We hope the operation can begin by the end of the week,� a Foreign Ministry spokesman said in Rome. He spoke on condition of anonymity. Another source said it could begin as early as Thursday.

A representative of U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar was in the Albanian capital negotiating the departure procedures on behalf of almost a dozen embassies where Albanians have taken refuge, he said.

Under the agreement, the asylum-seekers would be ferried from Albania’s Adriatic port of Durres to either Brindisi, about 85 miles away, or Otranto, on the Italian coast, the spokesman said.

The Italian government is working on contracting commercial vessels to transport the Albanians, the official said, adding he expected that several trips would have to be made to evacuate them all.

The Italian Red Cross was preparing to provide assistance to refugees arriving in Italy.

The more than 6,000 asylum-seekers began taking refuge in the embassies June 28 in a bid to escape Europe’s last hard-line Communist regime. Some dodged police bullets as they climbed over embassy gates.

The first 51 Albanians allowed to leave Tirana landed in Czechoslovakia on Tuesday.

Italian officials reported Tuesday that six Albanians who fled their country in a small boat were picked up in the Adriatic Sea during the night by a West German sailboat.