A flotilla is setting sail from Brindisi, Italy, the port that once received boats carrying Albanian migrants, bound for the coast of Albania. The goal of the trip is to show solidarity with the “Flamingo Revolution,” the protest movement against the privatization of public land and protected areas around Vlorë.
The voyage is a joint initiative of the Italian-Albanian collective “Mesdhe,” the Albanian collective “Free Palestine,” and the Italian branch of the Global Sumud Flotilla movement.
The “Flamingo Revolution”
For more than two months, thousands of Albanian citizens have been protesting the government’s plans to hand over Sazan Island and the protected Zvërnec area to investors for luxury resort development. The movement has since grown into a broader call for Prime Minister Edi Rama’s resignation.
The controversial investment, which raises serious questions about ownership and legality alongside environmental concerns, is linked to Jared Kushner, son-in-law of US President Donald Trump.
Activists see a connection between this project and Kushner’s push for a White House plan to turn Gaza into a “Middle East Riviera,” which risked displacing residents and erasing Palestinian culture.
Gaza, Puglia, Albania
For the flotilla, its boats serve as a bridge of resistance, linking Gaza, the struggles against similar development schemes on Puglia’s coast, and Albania’s Flamingo Revolution, a united front against the same interests.
According to Toni La Piccirella, a member of the Gaza flotilla’s international coordination team, these are all projects driven by a global elite that plunders resources and strips people of their rights and culture.
The flotilla itself is small: three sailboats and 30 people. A separate group, mostly second-generation Albanian immigrants, will travel to Vlorë by ferry.
The plan calls for the boats to first visit Sazan Island, weather permitting, before anchoring at Vlorë. On Saturday morning, August 22, the boats will sail to Dhërmi beach, anchor in the bay, and activists will hold a symbolic protest.
Solidarity and Symbolism
For La Piccirella, who is from Puglia, the connection feels obvious given the long shared history between Bari, Vlorë, and Albania.
He told the Albanian outlet VoxPress that the solidarity is also a response to shared threats, pointing to a similar resort project planned in Ostuni, Puglia’s so-called “gateway to the Adriatic,” which he says mirrors the Vlorë development. He added that the initiative also signals solidarity with Albania by showing there’s a stronger-than-institutional bond linking the Rama government and Giorgia Meloni’s.
Baki Gjonaj, a local coordinator for the initiative, points to the trip’s historical weight: the boats are departing from the same port where the ship Vlora once docked, the vessel that carried 2,000 Albanian migrants to Italy 35 years ago. In a sense, he says, this return trip closes the loop on that migration story alongside the Flamingo Revolution itself.
But he stresses the trip is fundamentally about solidarity: Italian activists, ordinary citizens, and journalists are joining, along with children of the Albanian diaspora and families of those who left in 1991.
