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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Rajeev Syal Home affairs editor

Albanian ambassador attacks UK right wing for ‘unhinged’ fixation with 2022 migrant surge

Officers stand at a plane's stairway as deported immigrants wearing hoods and masks descend
Officers escort people deported from the UK after landing at Tirana airport in December 2022. The Albanian embassy says most of the cohort that arrived by small boat that year have since left the UK. Photograph: Florion Goga/Reuters

The number of Albanians who travelled to Britain in small boats four years ago remains the focus of “unhinged” and “hysterical” criticisms from rightwing politicians and the media, according to the country’s UK ambassador.

Uran Ferizi said the influx of more than 12,000 people from the Balkan state in 2022 was “real”, “exceptional” and “short-lived”, but the Albanian community in the UK was still being framed by those events by Reform UK and the Daily Telegraph.

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