Last of Albania Shipwreck Bodies Arrive Home

TIRANA (Reuters) - The bodies of 52 Albanian refugees drowned off Italy in March were on their way to the southern port of Vlore on Friday for a funeral to be attended by two prime ministers. An Albanian government spokesman said the last of the bodies recovered from the wreck of the Kater i Rades were flown to Tirana in an Italian military plane and set off for Vlore in a convoy of trucks. Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi and Albanian Prime Minister Fatos Nano were due to attend the funeral, which was expected to start after midday. A day of national mourning has been declared in Albania. The Kater i Rades, laden with Albanians fleeing near-anarchy and violence in their homeland, went down in the Adriatic 40 miles offshore on March 28 after a collision with an Italian warship. Many of the 34 survivors have accused the Italians of ramming the boat. Italy denies this and says the corvette was carrying out orders to persuade a flood of Albanian refugees to stay away from Italian waters. An investigation has been opened. The Albanian government has said at least 79 Albanians drowned but only 52 bodies, several of them children, have been found. Several thousand people wearing black clothes and carrying bouquets of flowers had gathered in Vlore amid tight security with hundreds of police sent from Tirana. The Kater i Rades was one of scores of refugee craft that crossed the Adriatic at the height of the civil unrest in Albania earlier this year, set off by the collapse of bogus pyramid savings schemes.