Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks from Lebanon following meeting with four Albanian children who were taken out of the al-Hawl refugee camp in Syria and are expected to arrive in homeland:
PM Edi Rama: I feel so relieved because it was a complicated operation. I am extremely happy and I have also contacted the general who led the operation. We will meet the general tomorrow, who has been a great help to us, but I would also like to point out the exceptional merit of the two special envoys of the Ministry of Interior, namely the Head of the Anti-Terror Directorate and the other police officer, who have been operating all the time in the field, and specifically a very special friend of ours and the Honorary Consul of Albania to Lebanon, who has helped us immensely a lot to establish all the contacts – let’s say not so readable – with all stakeholders, since many factors have been involved here. So I’m very pleased that tomorrow morning, after thanking all those who have helped us, we will return to Tirana together with the children. The Director of the Social Services is also with us, and in the meantime we have also set up the entire necessary network to treat them with utmost care. The mother of three children, virtually invalid and in difficult health conditions due to an injury, but she will fly back with us. Meanwhile, what matters most is that this operation actually paves the way to the next phase, because now the whole extraordinary, intensive, negotiation process has completed, and interviews with all the children who have been identified in the camp have also completed, while we have also collected all the necessary data and we now wait for the final signal, which is always the most difficult part, before we can come back and bring every other Albanian children back home. Endi will be returned home. Yesterday and during all these days it was impossible to contact Eva. She is fine, but the information is a bit complicated.
– We hope that Eva, too, will join her brother and mother, and her uncle in particular, who hasn’t lost hope all over these years and has privately tried to repatriate them. Mr. Prime Minister, what will happen with these children upon their arrival in Albania? Will they join their families?
PM Rama: A structure that has been set up for all these children and not only them will initially care about these children. They will be the first ones to come to that structure under security measures, with psychologists, even doctors, to do everything, so to say, and all the necessary tests and analyzes in every aspect. Then we will gradually see how all things will turn out.
–Mr. Prime Minister, I am certainly aware of the complexity of such missions designed to take children out of the al-Hawl camp, but all the families that rightly have their eyes on this interview would want to know when their children will be brought back and when the second phase will take place?
PM Rama: The most difficult part of this activity aimed at taking the hostages out, because these are hostages already released from that situation, is that you can’t talk, you can’t provide information and you can’t inform, because confidentiality in this kind of very complex and complicated activity is the key, because otherwise everything is blown up, because it is not an interaction with one factor only. There are several factors and I cannot provide more information, but I want to say that I feel very good that at least today, we didn’t sit back idly, but we have been intensively and continuously working for more than a year and we continue the work. Ju thashë se kemi bërë një hap shumë të madh përpara, se kur mund ta materializojmë, unë nuk mund të flas. Mund të jetë shumë shpejt, mund të jetë pak më vonë, është e kotë të vendosim afate. Edhe për këta fëmijë, deri në momentin e fundit kemi qenë me zemër të ngrirë, sepse ka pasur 2-3 momente të vështira për skuadrën që ka marrë pjesë në këtë operacion. Tani, unë po marr vëmendjen tuaj, por besoj që nga gjithë këta që janë të pranishëm këtu, unë jam i fundit që kam ndonjë meritë, sepse merita kryesore nuk diskutohet që i takon djemve që janë këtu me ne sot, që kanë qenë këtu prej disa kohësh dhe patjetër i takon dhe konsullit tonë Markut, i cili është vënë në dispozicion të këtij operacioni me gjithçka, sikur të ishin fëmijët e tij.
