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Italian Police arrest seven for beating teenage migrants from Gambia

Published

6 years ago

September 5, 2018

Seven people have been arrested in Sicily for an unprovoked attack in August on a group of teenage African migrants , Italian Carabinieri police said on Wednesday .The suspects , four remanded in custody , three under house arrest were charged with assault with the aggravating circumstance of ethnic and racial hatred , a statement said .

They attacked six young Gambians and a care worker accompanying them during night – time celebrations for Ferragosto , an August 15 bank holiday , on a beach east of Palermo.

The assault continued as the migrants drove off from the beach .
Their van was followed to a nearby city , Partinico , where the assailants forced them to get out of the vehicle and attacked them again.

According to La Repubblica daily , they were hit with a stone and baseball bats , threatened with a gun , had their mobile phones stolen, and told: “ Get back to your shitty country , you must die . ”

Giornale di -Sicilia , another newspaper , said those arrested were aged between 28 and 71 .

Two women were among them , according to the Carabinieri statement .

There has been a reported increase in racist attacks in Italy , coinciding with a toughening of government policy against irregular migrants , spearheaded by Interior Minister , Matteo Salvini .

In Partinico , there was another assault in late July, when a 19 -year – old Senegalese man was showered with racist insults and beaten up .

Two men were placed under house arrest for the crime .

( dpa / NAN )