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IMMIGRATION

Man arrested in Italy over migrant race-hate murder

A man was arrested on suspicion of killing Nigerian asylum seeker Emmanuel Chidi Namdi on Thursday, as condemnation and tributes poured in from Italian officials.

Published: 7 July 2016 08:34 CEST
Updated: 7 July 2016 13:41 CEST
Man arrested in Italy over migrant race-hate murder
Emmanuel Chidi Namdi, 36, and his wife arrived in Italy last year after escaping Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria.

The 36-year-old was beaten to death in a racist attack by a right-wing football hooligan in the central Italian town of Fermo, in Marche.

Amedeo Mancini, 35, was arrested on suspicion of murder on Thursday morning.

Namdi was walking with his wife, Chinyery, on Via Veneto in Fermo on Tuesday night when they suffered racial abuse. The football hooligan allegedly called Chinyery, 24, a “monkey”.

That led to an altercation and Chidi was brutally beaten on the head, reportedly with a road-sign pole, until he fell to the ground.

The attack caused a brain hemorrhage that resulted in an irreversible coma. Namdi died on Wednesday.

The couple arrived in Italy last year after escaping an attack by the Islamic extremist group, Boko Haram, at a church in Nigeria in which they each lost their parents and their daughter.

Chinyery also lost her baby after the perilous Mediterranean crossing.

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi took to Twitter to condemn “hatred, racism and violence”.

Interior Minister Angelino Alfano attended a security meeting in Fermo on Thursday, after which he announced that Chinyery would be granted refugee status.
 
Laura Boldrini, president of the chamber of deputies, spoke of her “dismay” and “outrage” on hearing the news that “a man who escaped the ferocity of Boko Haram terrorists in his country was killed, here in Italy, because of hatred, racism and xenophobia”.

The couple had been living in the area for eight months and were lodged in a shelter run by Catholic charity Caritas. Chinyery has been moved to another centre.

IMMIGRATION

France ‘will not welcome migrants’ from Lampedusa: interior minister

France "will not welcome migrants" from the island, Gérald Darmanin has insisted

Published: 20 September 2023 09:06 CEST
France 'will not welcome migrants' from Lampedusa: interior minister

France will not welcome any migrants coming from Italy’s Lampedusa, interior minister Gérald Darmanin has said after the Mediterranean island saw record numbers of arrivals.

Some 8,500 people arrived on Lampedusa on 199 boats between Monday and Wednesday last week, according to the UN’s International Organisation for
Migration, prompting European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to travel there Sunday to announce an emergency action plan.

According to Darmanin, Paris told Italy it was “ready to help them return people to countries with which we have good diplomatic relations”, giving the
example of Ivory Coast and Senegal.

But France “will not welcome migrants” from the island, he said, speaking on French television on Tuesday evening.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has called on Italy’s EU partners to share more of the responsibility.

The recent arrivals on Lampedusa equal more than the whole population of the tiny Italian island.

The mass movement has stoked the immigration debate in France, where political parties in the country’s hung parliament are wrangling over a draft law governing new arrivals.

France is expected to face a call from Pope Francis for greater tolerance towards migrants later this week during a high-profile visit to Mediterranean city Marseille, where the pontiff will meet President Emmanuel Macron and celebrate mass before tens of thousands in a stadium.

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