Italy: Two Pakistani nationals arrested for burning Afghan migrants alive
Rome: Two Pakistani nationals have been arrested on suspicion of the murder of four migrants – three of them confirmed as Afghans – who were burnt alive in Amendolara town of Italy’s Calabria region, the local media reported on Tuesday.
A survivor from the fire incident told a local journalist that Pakistani men threw gasoline and fire into their car when they refused to pay.
“I saw the horror, I’m alive by a miracle,” said the survivor, who was tracked down by TGR Calabria and interviewed exclusively. The young farm labourer, the sole survivor of Monday’s massacre of farm labourers in Amendolara, is an Afghan citizen who lived with the victims in Villapiana, Adnkronos news agency reported.
“I thought I was going to die,” the man who escaped the incident in which four men were burnt alive told journalist Francesco Salvatore. He claimed that three of the victims were Afghans and that the two arrested, accused of voluntary manslaughter, were the ones who demanded transportation money, which the victims refused to give.
At that point, he said, the two first threw gasoline into the car and then a lighter, burning the four migrants alive. He managed to escape by breaking a window.
The man also said that Pakistanis threatened him and others with knives and guns to get him to work and that they didn’t pay them: “They didn’t give us money, food yes, a house yes, but money no,” he said, adding that there is a “large mafia in Pakistan.”
According to La Milano news, in Amendolara, Cosenza province, four charred bodies were found inside a minivan parked near a gas station along the Ionian State Road 106 on Monday.
The bodies were discovered after a vehicle fire was reported, prompting firefighters to respond to the scene.
The two detainees were located in Villapiana and taken to the Cosenza Police Headquarters, where they are currently being questioned by officers from the Flying Squad. Police were able to identify them thanks to testimonies gathered and video surveillance footage from the area, Adnkronos news agency reported.