TIRANA, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Albanian authorities launched Tuesday an awareness-raising campaign aimed at deterring Albanian nationals from seeking asylum in the European Union (EU) member countries.
Rovena Voda, Albania's deputy minister of Interior, told reporters Tuesday that such measure was taken after the discouraging figures shown recently by the European Institute of Statistics (Eurostat).
According to Eurostat report, the number of Albanians who applied for asylum amounted to 6,000 in the second quarter of this year.
Such figures promoted immediate reaction from Albanian state police.
The deputy interior minister confirmed that Border Police at the Mother Teresa Airport has toughened controls and measures for the prevention of asylum seekers.
Meanwhile, Voda said that during the upcoming days, the police officers would continue to provide leaflets to all Albanian travelers choosing one of EU countries as their destination.
"We want to encourage them to abide by all the criteria of free movement in the EU member countries, in order for Albania not to feel threatened by the phenomenon of asylum seekers, which has been pointed out as a concern by several EU member countries," Voda told reporters.
Albanians are listed sixth in the list after the countries of the Middle East and African countries as far as the high number of asylum seekers is concerned.
This is a higher number than the number of asylum seekers in the first quarter of the year, showing that the political crisis, especially prior to the June 25 elections, obliged Albanians to head to the EU.
Meanwhile, the total number of Albanian asylum seekers who sought asylum in the EU member countries in the first half of 2017 was 11,400.
