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 U.S. President Donald Trump’s 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, told Reuters. “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 told Reuters that their land was wrongfully sold for development since 2024 by a rival claimant. Several showed Reuters property deeds and tax records that they said supported their assertions. None received compensation.

More here

Tagged: World News BACK TO HOMEPAGE