Protests in Tirana entered a sixth consecutive day on Sunday, October 18, as students and other young people kept demanding that Prime Minister Edi Rama resign. Al Jazeera reported that hundreds gathered in front of the Ministry of Education, chanting “Rama, resign,” in a tense standoff with police. The health ministry figures cited by Al Jazeera count injuries from Tuesday, October 13 onward, which suggests that is when the current wave began.
Why people are protesting.
Demonstrators, mainly students and young people, cite alleged government corruption, a lack of jobs and poor education standards, according to Reuters and Al Jazeera. Some joined after a summer of largely peaceful protests against a luxury coastal development in southern Albania that is linked to Jared Kushner. Al Jazeera traces the unrest back to May, when what it calls the “Flamingo Revolution” began against that same complex. Discontent has grown for months, according to the same reporting.
Police action and arrests.
Reuters reported on Saturday that police chief Skender Hita said 1,067 people had been arrested and 388 criminally prosecuted, a figure he gave at a news conference. Hita did not deny that police had used rubber bullets. He said the means were applied in a limited manner, and seven officers have been suspended pending disciplinary investigations for exceeding their authority and failing to act proportionately.
Injury counts from the health ministry.
Al Jazeera cited a health ministry report issued on Sunday morning that counted 65 people injured, including 37 police officers, with 12 hospitalised. Since Tuesday, the ministry's count stands at 272 injured, including 169 officers. Al Jazeera reported that police used rubber bullets, water cannons and tear gas, while protesters threw fireworks and a Molotov cocktail, according to photo captions.
Rama's response.
Rama has ruled out resigning and said the government is not being challenged. Al Jazeera reported that he blamed a “foreign hand” for the protests and suggested the unrest could affect Albania's path to EU membership, which it hopes to reach by 2030. He said he was ready to hear the students' demands on education costs, but insisted that those responsible for property destruction be held accountable. Reuters reported that Rama said in a Facebook post that he would not step down, and that his government respects the students' right to protest.
Conflicting tallies.
No single total exists, because the sources count different things over different periods. Euronews, using figures from police, reported 167 arrests and 132 injured officers over five days. That is far lower than the 1,067 arrests the police chief gave Reuters. The coverage reviewed does not explain the gap.
What is still unknown.
It is unclear whether the government will change course on the protests or on the education issues the students raise. The reports do not say how many people have been detained since Sunday, and the injury figures do not separate protesters from bystanders. The coverage reviewed also does not say how the European Union has responded to the unrest.
Sources
- Albanian police fire rubber bullets as student protesters call for PM to quit (Reuters, copy via Spokesman-Review, 17 October 2026)
- Tirana sees sixth day of violent protests as Albania’s PM refuses to resign (Al Jazeera, 18 October 2026)
- Tirana Boards Up and Pulls Up Paving as Albania’s Protests Hit a Sixth Day (Eastern Herald, 18 October 2026)