– Ciro De Luca
Italy sent soldiers to restore order in a seaside town near Naples after an outbreak of coronavirus in an apartment block illegally occupied by hundreds of immigrant workers sparked violent clashes with residents.
On Thursday, the authorities announced that more than 40 people living in the abandoned buildings of Mondragone, 45 kilometers from Naples, were diagnosed with Covid-19 and warned that the entire city could be quarantined if the outbreak occurred. show disseminated.
The set of apartments was banned to prevent the spread of the infection, but images taken by state RAI television on Thursday showed a group of residents challenging the confinement order and marching through the city to protest what they said was racist discrimination.
Many of those living in the compound are Bulgarians who work as seasonal fruit collectors in the fields around the town. Italian street dwellers shouted “Mondragone is ours” and gathered in front of the banned buildings, which led the two sides to exchange insults, as the images showed.
Soldiers occupied barricades and police were conducting checks around the housing estate on Friday, while residents complained of being stranded inside with little information about what was happening.
At least 3,000 of the people living in and around the occupied buildings will be screened for coronavirus, said Vincenzo De Luca, governor of the Campania region, on the outskirts of the city.
Campania was only marginally affected by the Covid-19 epidemic, whose epicenter is in four northern regions that account for 70% of the nearly 240,000 confirmed cases since the outbreak was discovered in late February.
