August 24, 2017
Protesting refugees. Photograph: Angelo Carconi/EPA
Police in riot gear clash with refugees near main train station after about 800 were evicted from office building on Saturday
Police using water cannon and batons have clashed with refugees who had occupied a square in Rome in defiance of an order to leave a building where they had been squatting.
Television images from the dawn operation showed people screaming and trying to hit police, who were dressed in riot gear, with sticks.
The square, one block from Rome’s main train station, was strewn with mattresses, overturned rubbish bins and broken plastic chairs.
Refugees and police face each other. Photograph: Angelo Carconi/AP
Hung on the building was a sheet made into a banner saying: “We are refugees, not terrorists,” in Italian. A small fire burned on the pavement and a sheet hanging from a first-floor window was set alight by squatters inside.
A banner hanging on the building on Wednesday saying: ‘We are not terrorists, we want a house to live [in].’ Another said: ‘We are refugees, not terrorists.’ Photograph: Andrea/Pacific/Barcroft Images
Witnesses who arrived at the square after the clearance operation described a scene of carnage.
“When I arrived at about 9am trash was scattered all over. About 50 people were still in the square, which had been partially closed down to traffic in the meantime. They were sad, frustrated and with no idea where to go,” said Francesco Conte, founder of TerminiTv, an online channel based in Rome’s Termini train station.
About 100 people had occupied the square since Saturday, when most of about 800 squatters were evicted from an adjacent office building they had occupied for about five years.
Police said the refugees had refused to accept lodging offered by the city and that the operation was also necessitated by the risk presented by the presence of cooking gas canisters and other flammable materials in the square, which is surrounded by apartment buildings.
Most of the squatters were Eritreans and Ethiopians who had been granted asylum. Many have been in the country for up to a decade. They ran the building as a self-regulating commune that outsiders were not permitted to enter.
The refugees have previously complained that the accommodation offered to them elsewhere is not of a permanent nature, and that moving would result in the community they have established being split up. The area around the square is full of shops owned by the refugees’ compatriots.
In a statement, the police said the refugees had gas canisters, some of which they had opened, and officers had been hit by rocks, bottles and pepper spray. Two people were arrested.
The vast majority of refugees and migrants reaching Europe this year have landed in Italy, according to the International Organisation for Migration. Public opinion is increasingly turning against newcomers as well as those who have been in the country for a number of years.
“The authorities need to urgently find appropriate, alternative housing, and investigate the use of force by the police during the eviction,” said Judith Sunderland, associate director for Europe at Human Rights Watch. “It’s hard to see how the use of water cannon on people was necessary or proportionate,” she said.
Source: The Guardian
A police officer comforts a woman. Photograph: Angelo Carconi/EPA
WATCH Police Clash With Migrants From Ethiopia, Eritrea in Rome
© REUTERS/ Yara Nardi
Europe
(updated 23:04 24.08.2017)
Topic: Europe’s Refugee and Migrant Crisis
Heavy clashes erupted when Italian police attempted to disperse a crowd of some 100 African migrants who had set up a temporary camp in Rome.
Dramatic footage shows law enforcement deploying a water cannon and batons while ecnountering fierce resistance.
ROME (Sputnik) — The migrants hurled stones and bottles at the officers who were trying to remove them from Piazza Indipendenza (Independence Square) where they set up a camp on Saturday. Two people were detained.
The law enforcement had learned that some migrants might have inflammable materials, so the water cannon was deployed to prevent their use. The police also said that the migrants had refused to move to the accommodation provided by the authorities.
The migrants established the camp after being evicted from a house, which they had occupied for the last four years.
🆘‼️😯#Italy: MIGRANTS protest in #Rome: "We are not terrorists, we ONLY want a house for living." Some ppl. had to work hard to have a house! pic.twitter.com/Zkf7AjfHjc
— Onlinemagazin Ⓥ (@OnlineMagazin) August 24, 2017
Piazza Indipendenza is currently under control of the law enforcement as many of the evicted migrants could be hiding in neighboring blocks.
ITALY |
Police in #Rome clear the occupied square at “Piazza Indipendenza” by migrants with water cannons.
Italy alongside Greece has been serving as an entry point to the EU for migrants from Africa and the Middle East, who are escaping violence and poverty in their countries of origin. According to the latest data of the International Organization for Migration, the number of arrivals in Italy via the Mediterranean reached 97,931, for the period between January 1 and August 20.
Source – Sputnik