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08:48 CRIME

Serious accident on the Kardhiq-Delvinë axis / One person dies, three others are injured

A serious accident occurred on the Kardhiq-Delvinë axis, i...

The murder of Leandro Shametaj and the crimes we all committed

2025-10-29 21:44:00, Opinione Ardi Stefa

A 17-year-old, Leandro Shametaj, was killed last night in Vlora by an irresponsible driver who was driving his Porsche as if on a Formula 1 track, not in a city with people, lights and children.
A tragedy that shocked social networks, sparked anger for a few hours only to die down and fade into oblivion after a few days.

A 17-year-old boy lost his life in the middle of Vlora. Another name in the endless list of victims produced by irresponsibility, arrogance and a state that no longer has feelings.
And yet, this is not a single tragedy, it is a series of crimes that begin long before the fatal collision and continue even after it.
Behind this event is not just an accident. Unfortunately, there is a chain of crimes, small and large, that create a sick society and a soulless state.

How many crimes were there in Leandro's escape?
When children work and the state sleeps or looks the other way, this is where the first crime begins.
Leandro was 17 years old. A teenager who should have been at school, in a gym, in a course, or simply at home with his family. But no, he was working. As thousands of children work, no one is surprised!
They work to help their family, to buy a phone, to have a little economic dignity, to not feel the shame of poverty.

But behind every "child labor" lies the failure of a system that does not protect minors, that does not offer them prospects, that teaches them more through exhaustion than knowledge.
We are all complicit in this failure: the parents who allow it, the employers who benefit, and the state that does not see, does not listen, does not act.

There is another perpetrator in this story: the one who hired Leandro.
Perhaps without a contract, perhaps without insurance, perhaps without any care for the fact that there was a minor in front of him.
This is an abuse that in any other country would be called child exploitation, but here it is called “help”, “honest work”, “getting used to life”.

But life should not be learned through work that endangers life, through irresponsibility and recklessness.
In this country, minors work in construction, in bakeries, in car washes, in bars, while the state sells slogans about "vocational education" and "European future". Bitter irony.
The family, with all its love and sacrifice, is often complicit in its own ignorance.
When it allows a child to ride a motorbike without a license, without protection, in a city where traffic is like a time mine, it puts their life at risk.

Not out of malice, but out of the conviction that “It's okay!”, “He's a smart guy!”, “Take care of yourself!”
But care is not enough in a country where every road is a racetrack, every driver a danger, and the police are spectators.

The perpetrator was under the influence of alcohol, perhaps drugs, in a Porsche that represents everything this country worships: money, power, arrogance. This is the fourth crime: the driver who kills and the police who do not stop.
He killed not only Leandro, but also any illusion that the law exists for everyone.
Because in Albania, the one who has a luxury car is not a citizen: he is a god of the roads.
And the police? Busy with radars that do not work, with patrols that stop for bribes, not for prevention and punishment.
Therefore, in Albania, speed is pride and the victims are predetermined.
The fifth crime: the state that kills even after death

Leandro's body remained in the morgue for eight hours, without the family being able to retrieve the body. The reason: "The medical examiner is in Fier." This is the fifth crime: The state that kills even without death
Eight hours of waiting for a mother who was looking for her son. Eight hours of coldness, bureaucracy, cynicism.
A state that does not even know how to behave with the body of a dead person, how can it behave with the lives of the living?
This is not only administrative negligence, it is a lack of humanity.
Another crime in this history, which is neither the first nor will it be the last, is the one committed by the state that has killed hope, it is the crime of a state that has destroyed education, the economy and morality.
A state that has forced young people to work at an age when they should be learning, to leave when they should be building, to give up when they should be dreaming.

A state that doesn't kill with weapons, but with poverty, injustice and powerlessness.
And then, there is a crime that neither Porsche nor the state can commit, but we do: our silence.
We who read the news, feel pain for five minutes, and move on to the next video.
We who are used to deaths, accidents, injustices.
We who call them "tragedies", but not "shame".

We who have killed feelings and replaced reaction with indifference.
Leandro was killed in the middle of a city, but in fact he was killed in the middle of a cold society.
A society where children work, adults justify themselves, the state is silent and criminals laugh.
In this country, no one can say “I am not guilty!”, because each of us has helped, in one way or another, to make this death happen.

Leandro is not just a victim. He is the mirror where we must see our own face: tired, silent, guilty.
And perhaps, instead of a “Rest in peace!” or “Rejoice with the angels!”, it is time to say: to revive our conscience. Because without him, the killings will continue.
ps: I write these lines as a parent, as a teacher, as a citizen.