Migrant Dies After Detention Centre Inmates Set Fires to ‘Protest’ Border Controls

A 38-year-old migrant from Morocco died in an Italian detention centre this week after another migrant set his mattress on fire in a protest against the living conditions in the centre.

The incident took place earlier this week in an asylum seeker detention centre in Brindisi and saw a migrant set fire to his mattress causing smoke to spread within the structure.

The 38-year-old Moroccan national was allegedly “intoxicated” at the time of the fire, which took place early in the afternoon, and sleeping as it spread. Unable to get up, he died of asphyxiation due to smoke inhalation, the European Union-funded website InfoMigrants reports.

The fires were not the first to be set that day, as firemen had been called earlier to deal with smaller blazes set by the migrants in the detention centre.

So far, two migrants, from Georgia and Tunisia respectively, have been arrested in connection to the fire. They face charges for the killing of the Moroccan.

An Egyptian, a Gambian, and a migrant from Cape Verde were also arrested for causing the smaller fires that took place earlier in the day.

 

Setting fires as a means of “protest” in migrant centres is not a new phenomenon in Italy or Europe more broadly.

In September 2020, newly arrived illegal migrants quarantined in a Sicilian hotel due to the coronavirus pandemic set fires to mattresses and other furniture in an apparent protest against the measures.

During the fires, two Tunisians ended up throwing themselves out of windows in an effort to escape and had to be taken to a local hospital after suffering bone fractures.

Earlier this year in Perpignan, France, a group of migrants set fires to mattresses in a deportation centre, forcing an evacuation.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com.