Around 50 illegal migrants have set up a makeshift camp in Rome’s Colle Oppio park, only steps away from the iconic Roman Colosseum.
The camp, which is said to resemble a favela, contains illegal migrants primarily from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, with some even staying in archaeological sites, such as the ruins of the Domus Aurea villa of the infamous Roman Emperor Nero, Il Giornale reports.
The paper spoke to a migrant from Mali named Ibrahim, who claimed that around 50 migrants reside in the park in total and that he was angry and would prefer to return to his home country.
Another migrant, a Pakistani, told the paper that other migrants “rob me all the time” and showed off his sharpened screwdriver saying: “I swear that if they try again I will kill someone.”
While the park is incredibly close to one of Rome’s main tourist areas, it has been plagued for years by homelessness and criminality.
Only two years ago, an American tourist was sexually attacked by a migrant from Africa who initially asked her for a cigarette and then proceeded to try and drag her into a nearby bush.
Valentina Salerno of the Citizens’ Committee of Colle Oppio expressed concern that such incidents could reoccur saying, “Many people are mentally ill from the psychiatric point of view, because of their difficult past, for the conditions they find here, and for how they are forced to live.”
The area is not the only part of Rome that has become a hub for illegal migrant criminal activity.
The city’s main railway station Termini is also known as a hotspot for illegal migrants, with a Moroccan man arrested in the area in April of this year for stabbing a homeless man because he was wearing a crucifix necklace.
Only months before, two illegals from Egypt were arrested in the same area after they brutally beat up and tried to rob a woman in her 60s.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.