Killing of Nigerian street seller causes outrage
in Italy
Alika Ogorchukwu beaten to death in broad daylight
while onlookers stood by in far right-led Marche region
Lorenzo
Tondo in Palermo and Angela Giuffrida in Rome
Sun 31 Jul
2022 15.25 BST
Video
footage of a Nigerian street seller being attacked and killed in broad daylight
in Italy has sparked a row over far-right parties’ xenophobic tactics in the
country’s election campaign.
Alika
Ogorchukwu, 39, was killed on Friday in the centre of Civitanova Marche, a
beach town on the Adriatic Sea. According to Italian media reports and
witnesses, the attack began after Ogorchukwu made “insistent” requests to sell
handkerchiefs and “for pocket change”.
Video
recorded by onlookers who apparently did not attempt to intervene shows the
attacker wrestling Ogorchukwu on to his back on the pavement as the victim
tried to fight back. The assailant allegedly grabbed a crutch that the vendor
used to walk and struck him down.
A
32-year-old man from Salerno, in the Campania region, was arrested on suspicion
of murder.
The attack
was also recorded on several surveillance cameras. Matteo Luconi, the chief of
the flying squad in Macerata, said: “Witnesses will be heard and camera images
viewed to clarify the dynamics of the beating.”
Hundreds of
people from the Nigerian community and Italians protested in Civitanova Marche
on Saturday. Some compared the killing to that of George Floyd in the US.
Ogorchukwu’s
wife, Charity Oriachi, said: “I want to look that man in the eye and ask him
why he killed my husband. There were so many people around, why didn’t anyone
help him? I want justice now.”
The
incident has caused outrage in Italy, which will hold snap elections on 25
September. A coalition led by Brothers of Italy and including Matteo Salvini’s
far-right League and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia is tipped to win power.
A few days
after Mario Draghi confirmed his resignation as prime minister on 21 July,
members and leaders of the coalition began preparing their electoral campaign
by posting on Twitter news of crimes and rapes allegedly committed by “fake
refugees” and “illegal immigrants”. Tackling immigration and tightening
national security are among the coalition’s priorities.
Aboubakar
Soumahoro, an Italian-Ivorian activist, trade unionist and sociologist, said:
“Some political parties are legitimising fear and hatred towards those who are
different. This is a serious danger that we must fight every day.”
Don Vinicio
Albanesi, a local priest and founder of the Capodarco Community, an association
that takes care of refugees and people with disabilities, told La Repubblica:
“We live in a distrustful region, where black people are accepted only if they
do the humblest of jobs. We are dealing here with a culture that despises
anyone who is not white and local. You have to think that when a black priest
says mass then there are people who come to me to complain because according to
them that mass is not valid.”
The Marche
region has been ruled since 2020 by Brothers of Italy, a descendant of the
neofascist Italian Social Movement (MSI). The party’s leader, Giorgia Meloni,
who could become Italy’s first far-right leader since Mussolini, once said
Italy needed to “repatriate the migrants back to their countries and then sink
the boats who rescued them”.
Many on
social media accused Salvini and Meloni of spreading hatred against asylum
seekers during their political rallies. Enrico Letta, the leader of the
leftwing Democratic party, tweeted: “Unheard of ferocity. Widespread
indifference. There can be no justification.”
Francesco
Acquaroli, the Brothers of Italy president of the Marche region, condemned the
killing. “Along with expressing deep condolences to Alika’s family, it is also
necessary to reiterate the firm condemnation of an act of insane and
unprecedented violence, which has no justification and which damages the entire
Marche region,” Acquaroli said.
Salvini and
Meloni also denounced the killing and said they hoped the perpetrator would
receive the maximum possible sentence.
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