Labeled a “massacre” by authorities, video showing four migrant workers being burned alive at a gas station is driving a growing reckoning over the exploitation of foreign laborers by criminal gangs in Italy.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.Broadcast this week by Italian media and geolocated by NBC News, the footage shows two men leaping out of a vehicle, before one of them douses it with liquid and sets it ablaze.
As plumes of black smoke rise from the trunk, the men push against the doors to ensure their victims can’t escape.Four men died, a fifth made it out alive.
The gruesome killings drew widespread attention after surveillance footage was made public in the country that relies heavily on its celebrated agriculture industry.“We are facing forms of modern slavery that cannot be tolerated,” said Gianluca Gallo, the local councillor responsible for agriculture in Calabria — the southwestern region where the victims’ charred remains were found in the burned-out van parked at a gas station.
“The horrific murder of the four farm laborers in Calabria has shocked us all,” Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni said in a post on X on Wednesday.Police said that two suspects were arrested in the attack.Italy’s state broadcaster RAI reported they were from Pakistan.While the men in the video may have prevented four of their victims from escaping the car, one was able to get out through the trunk.Taj Mohammed Alamyar said he and the other men were being driven home by the gangmasters who controlled almost every aspect of their lives.
Alamyar told Sky Italia in Hindi that he escaped through the back of the car after it was set ablaze in the town of Amendolara.“I just want to know how I should contact the families,” he said, referring to the victims, three other Afghans and a Pakistani worker.
“I don’t have a phone or their numbers.”“I thought I was going to die,” Ala...