Four migrant workers burned alive in Calabria: two arrests
On the night of 1 June, four migrant labourers were killed in a van fire near Amendolara in Calabria. Two Pakistani nationals have been arrested for the quadruple murder.
Four migrant workers burned alive in Calabria: two arrests
On the night of 1 June, in a car park near the town of Amendolara in the province of Cosenza, four migrant labourers were killed inside a van that was set on fire. A fifth man, an Afghan aged 35, managed to escape through the rear door, suffering severe second-degree burns to his hands and arms.
The victims were three young Afghans, aged 19, 20 and 28, and a Pakistani aged 29. According to investigators' reconstruction based on the survivor's account and surveillance camera footage, the motive for the brutal crime stemmed from a quarrel that broke out inside the vehicle over unpaid wages and inhumane living conditions.
The surviving witness told investigators that the group had been working on strawberry picking since April, but had never received the agreed daily wage of 45 euros for eight hours of work. The five men were forced to sleep in a room with other people in overcrowded conditions, and were fed with insufficient food rations.
Video recordings clearly show the two suspects, both of Pakistani origin, pouring petrol inside the van, setting the flammable liquid on fire and holding the doors closed from the outside, preventing the passengers from escaping. Moments later, both flee on foot, while a column of black smoke rises from the vehicle. The movements inside the van testify to the desperate struggle of the four men to escape the flames.
Hours after the quadruple murder, law enforcement officers tracked down and arrested the two alleged perpetrators. At the time of their arrest they were still wearing the same clothes visible in the service station camera recordings.
The head of the provincial police in Cosenza described the incident as the most atrocious crime he had witnessed in 34 years of service. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also said she was deeply shaken by the massacre and thanked the investigators for the speed with which the perpetrators were identified, demanding a full reconstruction of the facts.
Opposition leader Elly Schlein and CGIL secretary general Maurizio Landini led a demonstration in Amendolara five days later with several hundred participants, calling for a moral and social turning point and decisive action against "caporalato", the system of exploitation of migrant labourers in Italian fields.
Source: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Source: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung