Back in Tirana, the government dismissed the refugees as social outcasts and claimed that 100,000 Albanians rallied in support of the government. But 24-year-old Enkeo Halili, a mechanic, had time only to look ahead. After disembarking, he told a reporter, “We don’t want these communists. We are young, we are poor. We’ve never even seen a discotheque.” In Brindisi, the weary travelers were met by teams of relief workers and the promise of new lives in Europe or the United States. Details of their settlement will take time; for the moment, the refugees are quartered in an abandoned Army compound. Yet for most of them, the longest step had already been taken.
