Africans living in Italy, mostly farm labourers have staged a street protest in southern Italy over poor working conditions.
AFP reports that they were chanting “we are not slaves, no to exploitation” during the protest over poor working conditions of farmers working on tomato farms.
A few days ago, sixteen of these foreign Agric workers died in two separate crashes in southern Italy.
On Monday 12 people died from a crash near the city of Foggia in the Puglia region.
The workers were returning to their makeshift homes after a day’s work before their car slammed head-on into a lorry transporting harvested tomatoes.
On Saturday, four African farm workers were also killed, and four others seriously injured in another collision with a tomato truck.
AFP PHOTO / CONTROLUCE
Italy’s far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini visited the region on Tuesday.
Salyini promised to deal with the situation saying he will fight people exploiting these farmers in and around Foggia.
The archbishop of Foggia, Vincenzo Pelvi, also commented on the incident. He said, “we must not, we cannot remain indifferent before the tragic deaths of our brothers”.
The African labourers want a pay rise. They complain about their merger earnings of $1.16 for picking 100kg of tomatoes.
Many of these farmers live in hasher conditions, picking tomatoes from farms under the blazing sun.
Many of them are exploited despite having regular papers that enable them to work on the fields.
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Source: Africafeeds.com
