A video has emerged of African migrant Ousseynou Sy describing his hatred towards Italians after he tried to set a bus full of Italian children on fire to protest migrants drowning in the Mediterranean.
The video, which was recorded before the Senegalese migrant kidnapped 52 children, two teachers, and a janitor aboard a school bus near Milan in March 2019, was found shortly after Sy’s arrest by police. But it was kept hidden by an Italian court that did not want the footage to be shared, according to reports by local media.
Italian newspaper Il Giornale obtained the 37-minute-long video and published part of it on Thursday.
The motivation for the 47-year-old’s attempt to set the bus full of 12-year-old children on fire has been known since last year. But the video confirms his motives and his hatred for Italians, with the Senegalese man alleging that Italians did not care that migrants from Africa were drowning in the Mediterranean.
“You suck, sons of bitches, you suck. You’re exploiting us, you’re sucking us dry, you’re slaughtering us,” Sy said in the video.
“Ugly sons of bitches, why do we come to you? Why do we knock on your doors? You don’t care. You just care about having your belly full (…) you fill your belly with your tomato pasta dishes and talk about migrants without knowing that those shitty tomatoes you’re eating have been harvested in 50 degrees in the shade by migrants,” he said.
The African goes on to state: “Isn’t Italy racist? What do you know about it? Are you black, are you gipsies, are you Arabs? If I had a magic wand, I would turn all of you Arabic or black. Then you would see.”
The video also clarifies that Sy was intending to act on his anger, as he states: “Enough is enough. It has to stop. Children of Africa, it is better to die fighting.”
The case shocked Italy last year after pupils aboard the bus described how the African had handcuffed them and threatened to burn them alive.
“He handcuffed us and threatened us. He said that if we moved, he would pour gasoline and light the fire. He kept saying that people in Africa die and the fault is Di Maio’s and Salvini’s. Then the carabinieri [police] saved us,” one child told police after the incident.
Just days after he was taken into custody, Sy made no apologies for his action, saying: “Repent? No repentance. It was something I had to do, and I would do it again. A Hundred times.”
Sy was sentenced on July 14th to 24 years in prison.