AS ALBANIA plunged ever deeper into civil strife and chaos, the Italian Prime Minister, Mr Romano Prodi, last night made a dramatic television appeal to Albanians, writes Paddy Agnew from Rome.
Offering to send further humanitarian aid Mr Prodi apparently urged them to avoid a civil war saying: "For the love of God save your country."
Even as Mr Prodi made his appeal, Italian military authorities were last night bracing themselves to deal with an expected wave off refugees attempting to flee to Italy.
Albanian navy torpedo boats, commercial ferries and private boats were reported to be making the short journey across the Adriatic, bound for Italy's Puglia coastline.
Italian state radio reports confirmed that among the first arrivals were two children of President Sali Berisha of Albania, who were among the 70 passengers on the Italian ferry Palladio which docked in Bari.
Along the coast in the port of Brindisi, two Albanian navy torpedo boats with 16 sailors on board landed while unconfirmed reports suggested that there were at least seven other such boats heading for the Puglia coastline, all of them sporting a white flag of surrender for the benefit of the patrolling Italian frigates and coastguard craft.
Also heading for Puglia, probably for the port of Otranto, was a merchant ship, reportedly seized in the Albanian port of Durres with an estimated 40 Albanians, allegedly armed, on board. Nor was there only maritime traffic between Albania and Italy yesterday since two Albanian Air helicopters, with 16 people including one woman and two children on board, landed near Brindisi.
The refugee exodus from Albania to Italy came at the end of hectic day which not only prompted an emergency Italian cabinet meeting on the crisis but which also saw Italian military authorities rescue some 400 foreign nationals, including 330 Italians, in a series of helicopter airlifts from Durres to nearby Italian warships in the Adriatic.
Although the Italian Interior Minister, Mr Giorgio Napolitano, last night said that Italy would do everything it could to discourage Albanian migrants, coastal and civic authorities in Puglia were last night preparing to deal with an expected influx. Mindful of the chaos provoked in one week in Augusta 1991 when some 21,000 Albanians arrived in Bari alone, temporary accommodation and holding centres have been prepared.
On the political front, Italy last night argued against a military intervention in Albania, with Mr Prodi suggesting that the international community's best hopes lay with the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe which is due to send in a peace mission today, led by former Austrian Chancellor Franz Vranitzky.