Migrants Take Social Workers Hostage in Italy

3 January 2017

Cona: After the margins in an asylum seeker shelter, the police had to free 25 employees Photo: picture alliance / ROPI

VENICE. Asylum seekers were detained after the death of an African on Monday when they held about 25 employees of an Italian reception center hostage for several hours. They blamed the death of the woman on the requested emergency physician as well as for the bad conditions in their accommodation.

After the twenty-five-year-old from the ivory coast was found dead in the shower, the inhabitants of the former barracks in the northern Italian city of Cona turned off the electricity and lit wooden pallets, reports Corriere della Sera. They accused the emergency doctor of having come too late. The employees of the Ecofficina cooperative team were then forced into their offices and were only released after midnight by the police.

Lega Nord denounced the government's inactivity

The Lega-North politician and deputy chairman of the Europe of Nations and Freedom Group in the EU Parliament, Matteo Salvini, lamented the inaction of the Italian government in a contribution to Facebook. In Bulgaria, in a similar case, the  foreigners concerned were expelled while "nothing like this will happen to this scum in Italy". Salvini announced that he would enact "mass expulsions" and close down detention centers as well as end naval operations in the Mediterranean.

Italy has received over 180,000 immigrants last year, most of them from Nigeria, Eritrea, Guinea, the Ivory Coast or Gambia. In the 3,000-inhabitant municipality of Cona, about 1,400 asylum seekers are currently being accommodated. The rescue workers rejected the allegations that they had arrived late. The prosecutor of Venice has ordered an autopsy of the Ivorian. (Vi)

https://jungefreiheit.de/politik/ausland/2017/asylbewerber-nehmen-sozialarbeiter-in-italien-als-geiseln/

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
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