Migrants evacuated from southern Italian town

[pampango]

Source: BBC

Italian authorities have evacuated hundreds of migrants from a southern town and brought in extra police after violent protests broke out. Extra police were deployed after two days of riots, during which 37 people were injured and cars were set alight. The violence broke out after two migrants were shot at with pellet guns by a group of local youths.

Italy's Interior Minister Roberto Maroni (Northern League) prompted a storm of criticism from the leftist opposition by suggesting that the violence was the result of not addressing the issue of illegal workers in the country.

Opposition leader Pierluigi Bersani (Chairman of the Democratic Party of Italy, the main center-left political party) said: "Maroni is passing the buck ... We have to go to the root of the problem: mafia, exploitation, xenophobia and racism."

Some 320 African migrants - mainly from Ghana and Nigeria - were taken by bus from the southern town of Rosarno to a reception centre at Crotone, some 170km (105 miles) away. Local residents applauded as the eight buses carrying the migrant workers left the town, AFP reports.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8450083.stm

[pjt7]

1. this has been an on-going problem in Italy for

a few years.