Seven migrants died in traffic accident while fleeing from Albanian police

Eight people, including seven migrants, were killed in a traffic accident in Albania on Tuesday morning while trying to flee from security forces. The police reported this in a press release.

The driver of the car, an Albanian, lost control near the southern Albanian city of Permet and the car plunged into the Vjosa river, police said. The initial investigation shows that the Albanian police wanted to check the vehicle, but the Albanian driver accelerated and fled the scene.

The migrants, “originating from the Middle East” according to police, had crossed the border between Greece and Albania. They probably then wanted to travel via Montenegro to other European countries.

Albania is on the so-called Balkan route, along which hundreds of thousands of migrants from Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East traveled to the European Union during the 2015 and 2016 refugee crisis, fleeing poverty and conflict. Nearly a hundred thousand people took the route between January and October 2023, the European border control agency Frontex said.