New riot police reinforcements were sent to a locality in southern Italy on Friday, where the appearance of a coronavirus outbreak among foreign workers has for several days been causing tension with the local population.
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Some 700 people, mostly Bulgarians employed in the agricultural sector, have been confined since Monday to Mondragone, a locality 60 km northwest of Naples, after the discovery of 43 cases of contamination with Covid-19 among them, according to the President of the Campania region, Vincenzo de Luca.
Illegally occupying a complex of five buildings, they were ordered to remain confined to the site for a fortnight, while screening tests are underway throughout the neighborhood. On Thursday morning, a group of dozens of people broke through the confinement cord for a protest march in the city, causing tension and scuffles with residents, who threw stones at them.
Several vehicles belonging to Bulgarian residents were damaged, their windows broken by Italian residents who displayed their foreign license plates like a trophy, according to images broadcast by Italian TV. Another vehicle was set on fire overnight from Thursday to Friday.
The police intervened to turn them back, while around fifty soldiers arrived in the evening as reinforcements to delimit and enforce a containment zone. “No one should leave these buildings for 15 days. The area will be monitored 24 hours a day by police, gendarmes and the army, ”Di Di Luca told local press.
This subdivision “is one of the thousands of ghettos in Italy where we crowd foreigners more or less in order,” wrote an editorial in the daily Corriere della Serra on Friday morning. Its occupants wish to return to their work on farms in the region to earn money, while the local population accuses them of helping to spread the coronavirus.
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