Rome, 22-year-old commits suicide at the Ponte Galeria migrant centre. Clashes with police

Rome, 22-year-old commits suicide at the Ponte Galeria migrant centre. Clashes with police and throwing of tear gas

Stones were thrown at the workers, iron grates and doors knocked down. The attempt to set fire to a police car. A morning of tension and unrest in the Ponte Galeria repatriation detention centre, at the gates of Romeafter suicide Of one of the young awaiting expulsion. A lad Of 22 years oldoriginally from Guinea, found hanged at dawn by a police sector manager inside the structure: a nurse from the medical unit attempted to resuscitate the young man but it was too late. The 22-year-old had arrived ten days ago and had to be repatriated. He came from the reception center in Trapani from which he had been transferred after a fire in the complex.

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After hearing the news of the boy's death, dozens of foreigners detained at the CPR started a series of incidents. As reported by Corriere della Sera, the police were forced to also use i tear gas to repel repeated attempts to break down the doors that divide one sector from another. Some young people broke two iron grates at the front of the complex and then also tried to break down the door. From there they then attempted to set fire to the parked police car but the flames were put out by the officers. At that point the intense stone throwing began at policemen and internal workers. There were no injuries. The forensic team is working to examine the internal videos of the CPR to identify the participants in the scuffles for whom immediate repatriation measures could be taken.

Ilaria Cucchi (Avs), vice-president of the Justice commission of Palazzo Madama who had already denounced the conditions of the Ponte Galeria migrant center and who in these hours is also insisting on suicides in prison, asks for clarity: “I am learning of yet another death in the CPR of Ponte Galeria – writes Cucchi – months ago I made a complaint to the Rome Prosecutor's Office, precisely on that structure, after having visited it with a hidden camera, I deposited the complaint and the video images on the conditions of the center that I had collected, I then came heard by the magistrate but I had no further news”. “I invite the Rome Prosecutor's Office – adds Cucchi – to clarify what happened last night and in general on the living conditions in that CPR because these deaths must never happen again”.

Clashes at the Ponte Galeria CPR in Rome, complaints from the unions

In September, the Carabinieri unions had also insisted on the situation inside the centre, describing it as “out of control”: a “dilapidated” structure, they had denounced, also underlining the “serious shortage of staff, four Carabinieri for 100 migrants”.