Italy: Mob violence in Stornara
01 January 1991
Italy: Mob violence in Stornara
500 African migrant tomato-pickers were forced to flee under
police escort from the south-eastern region of Puglia, after
locals launched what has been described as a `black hunt', during
which an Algerian man was shot and wounded. The mob violence
began in the town of Stornara, and spread to nearby Ortanova,
when local people blamed `foreigners' for the death of an 82-year
old pensioner during a robbery. The local police have no evidence
linking the attack to migrant workers, but this did not stop the
local community from jumping to conclusions and running the
immigrants out of town.
As news of the mob violence spread around the countryside
surrounding Foggia (the regional capital of Puglia), casual
tomato pickers, who had been in the area since the early summer,
fled. Hundreds of workers fled on foot, by train, whatever way
they could. Others hid in local shacks.
The mob violence and mass hysteria is being blamed on the poor
tomato harvest, the economic crisis, and the lack of proper
accommodation for the immigrants. A local politician called for
a revision of the Martelli law on the grounds that the `worsening
economic and employment crisis and disorderly flow of non-EC
citizens runs the risk of sparking an explosion in our country'.
But the head of the employment office in Foggia reminded the
politicians: `Without the non-EC citizens, we'd not manage the
harvest'.
The local hysteria against the immigrants was followed by a
police operation against them. In Stornara, police and
carabinieri rounded up about 150 Algerians, Moroccans and
Tunisians and packed them into trains and coaches and sent them
off to Naples, several hours away. Ninety-one of them without
valid residence permits were served with deportation orders. In
Ortanova, the local mayor organised the expulsion of several
hundred workers from a decrepit old building, known locally as
`Hotel Africa'. Twenty Italians, most of whom are agricultural
labourers, were arrested in Stornara, accused of leading the hunt
of blacks and charged with criminal association, incitement to
violence and criminal damage. Sixteen of the twenty have been
released on condition they remain under house arrest. Eleven of
the men have been charged with incitement to violence. These
eleven include two town councillors, one of them Christian
Democrat, the other a socialist.
Before the arrests, the parish priest of Stornara and the Bishop
of Cerignola had presented the murder investigation with a
statement accusing two town councillors of fomenting the anti-
immigrant violence.
When the public prosecutor compared the events in Stornara to
similar events in Germany, saying, `It's a miracle that no-one
was murdered', the socialist deputy mayor's response was one of
amazement. `Nothing special has happened', he said (Independent
18.9.93., Il Manifesto 18.9., 20.9., 24.9., 28.9.93).
Rome sees increase in attacks
A Tunisian building worker, Noamani Faikal, was stabbed by three
white youths in Rome in the most serious of an estimated one
hundred racist attacks that have recently taken place in the
capital. The white youths involved had apparently been involved
in a number of incidents with immigrants, claiming that they
accept `any work at all at whatever rates, however low'. They
attacked Faikal from behind as he was returning home from a
building site, shouting `you're dead' before wounding him in the
chest with a knife. The civil rights group, Senzaconfine, which
described this attack as a `murder attempt', is setting up an
emergency phone line for victims of racism (Il Manifesto 5.9.93).
Other attacks
A Moroccan labourer, Mohamed Derekaomi, has been hospitalised
after a racist attack by three youths on Sardinia, in Tempio near
Sassari.
Mohamed Derekaomi was in a bar when he was approached by three
youths who called him a `bastard nigger'. A bystander intervened
when the youths as