RRJOLL: Some 200 protesters on Saturday tore down metal and razor wire fences surrounding a luxury development site on Albania’s Adriatic coast, in another sign of growing anger against construction in environmentally sensitive areas.

Albanians have been protesting for weeks against a planned luxury resort backed by a company linked to Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump, near Vlora, which is famed for its flamingos and a turtle nesting site.

On Saturday, villagers from Rrjoll, located in an area of sandy beaches and pine forests in northwestern Albania, protested against another project, saying it was being built on their confiscated land.

They waved Albanian national flags and shouted “Revolution” as they tore down the fences. Some scuffles with police broke out but the police did not stop them from removing the fencing.

“The protests will not stop until the residents of the village of Rrjoll are compensated. We are 200 families whose land has been seized,” said Zeke Nikolle Shullani, 56, one of the landowners who have been protesting for several months.

An Albanian company has been developing a five-star luxury tourist resort on the site and the project was granted “special status investor” by the Albanian government.

“What is happening in this country is madness,” said Nikolin Markpalaj, 60, another local landowner. “We asked the investors to come and consult with the people but they refused. They think they can take all this wealth without blood or anything else that might happen here?”

Who owns land?

When Kostaq Konomi approa­ched what he says is his land on the seafront in southern Albania last month, he was met with a barbed wire fence and men in black uniforms who refused him entry.

The land, he later learned from news reports, was now part of a luxury resort planned by international investors including US President Donald Trumps son-in-law Jared Kushner.

The property, which sits on a hillside of flowering gorse that slopes down to a deserted cove where cows saunter in the shallows, had been taken away once by the state in communist times, and he could not bear to see that happening again.

“I was ready to get a rifle and start shooting,” Konomi, 81, said. I was a small boy when I put my feet in that water. Now I am an old man and they say I cannot.

Konomi is one of a dozen residents from the village of Zvernec who said that their land was wrongfully sold for development since 2024 by a rival claimant. Several showed property deeds and tax records that they said supported their assertions. None received compensation.

The villagers’ legal claims complicate what is already a contentious multi-billion-euro development on an island and a pristine piece of mainland that includes a protected wetland home to migrating flamingos, seals and sea turtles.

Mass protests erupted this week in the capital Tirana demanding that the work be halted, and the European Union has also expressed concern about the impact on local wildlife.

Prime Minister Edi Rama, who championed the deal asserts that the development is legal and that habitats would be protected.

Published in Dawn, June 14th, 2026