The brutal killing of four immigrant workers who were burned alive in a vehicle this week has Italian officials struggling to confront rampant labor exploitation by criminal gangs that have infiltrated Italy’s agricultural industry.
The killings on Monday at a gas station in Calabria, in southern Italy, were caught on camera, and the video has shocked Italians and drawn the attention of national officials all the way up to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Surveillance footage showed two people dousing a vehicle with gasoline and blocking the doors as the vehicle and its passengers burned. One person managed to escape the vehicle and has been speaking to Italian news media about the harrowing event.
Mohammad Taj Alamyar, 35, who is originally from Afghanistan, told investigators that he and the four others, who were from Afghanistan and Pakistan, had been working on the region’s strawberry harvests. He said they had asked the men who had arranged their work and accommodations, and who were driving them back from a shift on a farm after work, about wages that had been withheld, prompting the violent response.
The men who set the vehicle on fire were Pakistani drug traffickers with ties to Italian organized crime, said Mr. Alamyar. With both of his hands bandaged and one in a sling, he told La Repubblica, an Italian newspaper, that he had escaped through the open rear of the burning vehicle.
Ms. Meloni wrote in a social media post on Wednesday: “Italy does not retreat in the face of violence and barbarity. It is essential to shed full light on this terrible crime and bring all those responsible to justice.”
The attack has highlighted labor exploitation issues, particularly in Italy’s agriculture industry, where criminal gangs recruit foreign workers to toil in a corrupt system that has become entrenched.
Alessandro d’Alessio, the prosecutor handling the matter, called the case “an incident of unprecedented gravity” and said his team was investigating the broader context of illegal labor brokering.
Antonio Borelli, a local police commissioner, said in a news conference that he had “never personally witnessed an act of such cruelty before.”
The victims were all in Italy with valid residence permits, had no criminal records and had been residing in the country for years, according to prosecutors. The four workers killed have been identified by the authorities as Waseem Khan, 29, of Pakistan; and Amin Fazal Khogjani, 28, Ullah Ismat Qiemi, 19, and Safi Iayjad, 27, all of Afghanistan.
Two men, Safeer Ahmed and Ali Raza, both 31, who are also legal residents of Italy, have been arrested in connection with the crime, prosecutors said.
“We must engage in a profound reflection on what has happened and what continues to happen in the context of labor exploitation,” Gianluca Gallo, Calabria’s agriculture commissioner, wrote on Facebook. “We are facing forms of modern slavery that cannot be tolerated in any way.”
Calabrian officials have expressed concern that the victims were working under an illegal labor brokering system known as “caporalato,” in which criminal gangs recruit workers — predominantly from migrant backgrounds — for cheap labor in difficult conditions, primarily in agriculture.
Ms. Meloni belongs to a far-right movement that rose to power on an anti-immigrant platform, but she has been supportive of the legal immigration that props up Italy’s aging and shrinking work force and now helps to drive Italy’s economy.
“We have increased the flow of legal workers to ensure that foreigners arriving in Italy to work in seasonal jobs do so within a fully legal framework,” said Francesco Lollobrigida, Italy’s agricultural minister. “This incident may discourage us, but it must not deter us.”
In light of the brutal deaths, the Calabria Regional Council will hold a meeting on Monday focused on gang bosses, labor exploitation and the plight of migrants, Salvatore Cirillo, the council president, told local news media.
Ephrat Livni is a Times reporter covering breaking news around the world. She is based in Washington.
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