Bling-filled videos of life in Britain have spurred thousands of Albanians to leave. But some posts have an ulterior motive
n a small city in north-eastern Albania, 32-year-old Besmir Billa is fighting an invisible enemy. Billa has lived in Kukes – one of the poorest places in Europe – for his entire life. As a young man he resisted the urge to find work elsewhere because he wanted to stay close to his family. He always hoped his nephews, who are like sons to him, would make the same choice.
But last year the steady stream of migration to Britain turned into a spike. Legally, Albanians can enter Britain through official entry points on a visitor visa, but they have to go through an onerous application process which includes demonstrating that they have “sufficient funds” to support themselves during their stay. Many have come to believe the only realistic way to make it to Britain – and, crucially, to escape into its informal economy undetected – is by paying smugglers.
Those who remain watch their friends’ lives in London play out on their phones. Influencers who have made the crossing post videos on TikTok of themselves driving past Big Ben in expensive cars. Albania was the most economically isolated of the old eastern-bloc economies. Western clothing brands weren’t available, and ordinary citizens were not even allowed to own cars, which may explain their outsized status in Albanian culture today.
Cannabis-farm labourers are offered £600-800 a month, though many end up working for nothing because the same gangs are thought to control both cannabis production and the smuggling routes, and migrants are told they owe these groups money for bringing them to Britain. Conditions on the farms are grim. Workers are sometimes locked in derelict buildings with boarded-up windows for months on end.
Signs of the region’s connections with Britain are everywhere. One town boasts a replica red telephone box outside its British-themed bar. It’s as if a parallel world exists alongside day-to-day life in north-eastern Albania. “My heart, my mind is in England,” said Albiona Thaci, a 33-year-old woman whose husband was smuggled to Britain a few months previously in a small boat. She remembers a terrible few days during his crossing when she couldn’t reach him: his phone had fallen into the sea.
At first he tried to pay off the debt by washing cars and doing other odd jobs. But they never paid enough, and the smugglers’ emissaries kept turning up demanding money. He was scared.
Belgique Dernières Nouvelles, Belgique Actualités
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