Four agricultural workers killed by fire in the Cosenza province: two labour brokers arrested
A group of foreign workers employed in fruit harvesting died in a burning vehicle. The alleged perpetrators are two compatriots who managed recruitment in the fields.
Four agricultural workers killed by fire in the Cosenza province: two labour brokers arrested
A minivan parked in the refuelling area of Amendolara, in the province of Cosenza, became a deadly trap for four workers of Pakistani origin during the night between 1 and 2 June. The alleged perpetrators, both compatriots of the victims, were apprehended by the Prosecutor's Office of Castrovillari on the basis of security camera recordings.
According to investigators' reconstruction, the group of five labourers had opposed the exploitative regime imposed by the two labour brokers. The workers, employed in strawberry harvesting in the Sibaritide area, had requested a regular contract rather than continuing with simulated wages of 350 euros per month. The daily wage was 50 euros, but each worker had to pay 5 euros to the gang bosses for transport between the various plots.
The reaction was ferocious. The two organisers poured flammable liquid inside the vehicle and attempted to set it alight. A fifth passenger, an Afghan worker named Taj Mohammad Alamyar, managed to break the window and escape despite the burns he sustained. He is the central figure in the ongoing investigation.
Before the massacre, those responsible had threatened the workers with bladed and firearms to force them to accept the imposed conditions. The case falls within a phenomenon rooted in the Piana di Sibari and the Metapontino, where the caporalato system has conditioned field work for decades and returns to public attention only on the occasion of tragedies of this magnitude.
Last December, four Pakistanis had already been arrested at the conclusion of an investigation by the Prosecutor's Office of Matera following a road accident in Scanzano Jonico in which four Indian workers crammed into a car lost their lives. In that instance too, a recruitment mechanism emerged for strawberry harvesting with inhumane conditions.
Source: Il Fatto Quotidiano
Source: Il Fatto Quotidiano - Cronaca