TIRANA — The streets of Albania’s capital burned through a fourth night of clashes on Friday, as the student-led demonstrations that have been building for days hardened into the worst political violence Tirana has seen in years.
Riot police fired tear gas and turned water cannons on crowds along the capital’s main boulevard. Protesters answered with stones, smashed shopfronts and government buildings, and set garbage bins alight to block the roads. Fighting carried on into the night in several districts, according to reporters from AFP who watched demonstrators try to force their way into government offices.
The human cost is mounting fast. Interior Minister Ervin Demo said Friday that 156 people had been injured in recent days, including 97 police officers. Police detained 160 people for acts of violence on Thursday alone. Among the targets: the finance ministry, which protesters tried to storm, and the education ministry — the building where the whole wave began.
This is no longer just a student protest. What started months ago as the ‘Flamingo’ movement — a campaign against a luxury resort project linked to Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump, planned for a protected coastal area — has now fused with a student revolt over tuition fees and crumbling universities. Together they are demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama, whose Socialist Party has governed Albania since 2013.
Rama’s answer has been defiant, and on Friday it took a familiar authoritarian turn: he blamed unnamed “foreign hands” for the unrest.
In a statement, the prime minister insisted the violence had “absolutely nothing to do with the hardships, problems or legitimate aspirations of anyone who desires a better life.” Instead, he said, “all of this is the work of the very same hand, the hand that has gripped the Albanian opposition by the throat, the hand that has burned and destroyed Albania more than once.” In a video posted on Facebook, he added: “These are foreign hands that do not wish for Albania to be at peace.”
He offered no evidence and named no country.
The students on the streets tell a different story. Ledia, an 18-year-old high school student who asked AFP to use only her first name, said: “We are not criminals. We simply want a better life for our parents and ourselves. We do not want to leave Albania.” She blamed the escalation on the government itself: “The government’s indifference and arrogance since the beginning of our movement have been unbearable and made the situation worse.”
The government has acknowledged at least some of the fault lies with its own forces. Demo said two instances of excessive police force had been registered, and two officers were suspended. “I would also like to remind you that we have far more reason to come together and work for the good of our country than to clash,” he said. “This is a disguised attempt by those who seek to seize power through violence.”
The unrest is no longer confined to Tirana. Reports from other Albanian cities describe smaller-scale violence and university boycotts, a sign the discontent is spreading beyond the capital’s boulevards.
Why this matters goes well beyond one small Balkan country. Albania — a nation of roughly 2.4 million people on the Adriatic Sea — is a formal candidate for European Union membership, with accession negotiations underway. For Brussels, the Western Balkans are the testing ground of EU enlargement: proof that the union can still absorb new members and stabilize its own backyard. A prolonged crisis in Tirana, led by the very generation the EU hopes to attract, is the worst possible advertisement for that project. And the trigger — a resort tied to the family of a sitting US president — ties the crisis to Washington, not just Brussels.
For now, neither side is backing down. The protesters have promised to keep coming. Rama has promised not to listen to “foreign hands” he refuses to name.
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