The ship was built in the Cantieri Navali Riuniti of Ancona in Italy by the Società Ligure di Armamento (based in Genoa).

Launched on 4 May 1960 and placed into service on 16 June of the same year, it was sold in 1961 to the government controlled Joint Sino-Albanian Shipping Company, who based it in Durrës under Albanian flag and renamed it the Vlora.

[1][2][3] The fall of communism in Albania in the early 1990s gave way to a major economic collapse (with severe food shortages) amid widespread political and social unrest in the country.

The city of only 80,000 had found itself struggling to cope with such an influx, yet the inhabitants generously provided food and shelter and the immigrants were generally well received.

An attempt was made to blockade the port's entrance using small ships and the navy frigate Euro to try and constrain the captain to return to Albania.

Citing the worsening conditions on board the ship, after passengers had spent 36 hours with virtually no food or water in stifling heat, Milaqi refused to back down.

Whilst in the port scores of its passengers jumped into the water and swam to the shore or climbed down ropes while it was mooring, with many disappearing into the city.

When the improbability of such a plan emerged, other measures were haphazardly put in place, some of the injured (a few caused by the unrelenting sun) were taken by ambulance to hospital, as were a number of heavily pregnant women, the mayor Enrico Dalfino and vice-prefect Giuseppe Cisternino organised the distribution of water.

[7] Food and water was literally thrown over the wall by the authorities using a fire truck crane, which meant it was mostly appropriated by the before-mentioned thugs.

Whilst hundreds of refugees managed to escape - some hiding in the Fiera del Levante exhibition pavilions - around 2,000 were surrounded by police outside the stadium.

The police chief Vincenzo Parisi convinced a number to leave with the offer of new clothes and 50,000 lire (a considerable sum in Albania at the time).

It prompted him to write an article in Avvenire denouncing the authorities, chief of which the minister of interior and the head of the Protezione civile, for treating them like animals.

[12] With the media attention highlighting the dire situation in Albania, that country's authorities, pressured by Italy, put its ports under military control and halted all passenger trains to stem flow of emigrants.

[5] According to Milaqi's account, the ship stayed in Bari's port for 45 days before his crew and himself managed to take it back to Albania (it's possible it was towed due to the heavy damage it had sustained).

[6][1] During the European migrant crisis of 2015, a still image of the crowded Vlora was attached to various fake news hoaxes purportedly of contemporary ("Muslim", "Syrian", "terrorist") refugee populations.