THIRTY FIVE civilians, including 20 Italians and 10 journalists of various nationality, were airlifted from the southern Albanian port of Vlore (known to Italians as Valona) yesterday afternoon in a military operation staged by the Italian air force and navy.
The operation, carried out without incident and in agreement with the Albanian government, was the most tangible sign yet of Italian government concern about the state of civic unrest and violence in its Adriatic neighbour.
On Sunday, the Italian Prime Minister, Mr Romano Prodi, reacted to the declaration of a state of emergency by contacting President Sali Berisha to urge him, in a phone conversation to use every means possible to find a political solution, that is both prudent and moderate".
The Italian Foreign Minister, Mr Lamberto Dini, also expressed Italian concern, calling for an immediate emergency EU meeting and for international financial organisations to combine in the drawing up of "a financial rescue plan to deal with the crisis.
Italy's concern about events in Albania is based on its close geographic and historical ties with the former Stalinist state. Albania is only an eight to 10 hour boat ride across the Adriatic. In the 1920s and 1930s the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini supported the Albanian monarchy.
In more recent times, the downfall of communism in Albania has prompted an enormous exodus of Albanian economic migrants to Italy. The first large consignment of Albanian "boat people" consisted of 4,000 migrants who arrived in the Pugliese port of Brindisi in July 1990. The following year, 15,000 Albanians docked in the port of Bari on one day in March, followed by 21,000 in one week in August of the same year, again in Bari.
Since then, clandestine migration from Albania to Italy has gone on almost without interruption, with Ministry of the Interior officials calculating a "delivery" rate of 25,000 boat loads last year alone. In the first two months of this year, some 900 Albanians have been arrested in the Bari area and repatriated.
The majority of Albanians who arrive in Italy fail to find permanent work and many of them drift into petty crime, prostitution and drug dealing.
The state of unrest has seen Italian coastal authorities put on full alert based on fears of a renewed wave of clandestine immigration.
Under an Italy Albania Co-operation programme, Italy has directed about 140 million of infrastructural aid to Albania between 1993 and 1996, making Italy the country's chief aid donor. Furthermore, 70 per cent of Albanian exports go to Italy while more than 600 Italian firms are now operating there.
Last month, Italy's Anti Mafia Task Force said the Italian Mafia had been involved in the collapse of the Albanian pyramid banking schemes. The Mafia had used the Albanian banks to launder money earned in drugs trafficking, it was claimed. Investigators believe that boats arriving from Albania with illegal immigrants have often been used to transport heroin as well as money for laundering.