For the whole day of Thursday in Mondragone, in the province of Caserta (Campania), there were demonstrations and clashes between some Italian and other Bulgarian residents of Roma ethnicity, who have lived in some buildings of the city for about ten years. The cause of the clashes was a protest by the Bulgarian community, which asked for more attention towards them, but several newspapers write that the latent tensions between the communities have lasted for many years and have grown in recent days due to a coronavirus outbreak .
The situation was especially tense in the afternoon, when dozens of people – some of them belonging to the local extreme right – showed up under the buildings where the Bulgarian community lives to intone racist choirs, vandalize cars and ask the police to expel the community Bulgarian from the city, it is not clear by what criterion. Some people from the Bulgarian community reacted by responding to demonstrators, sometimes in a violent way: one of them threw two chairs on the crowd from his balcony (nobody was injured).
Republic It describes the area where the Bulgarian community lives as a “dormitory neighborhood”, “inhabited by a community of people who came from Bulgaria to find work especially as laborers in the cultivations of Casertano and Lower Lazio”. In the neighborhood they live between 600 and 700 people, most of them in condominiums called Palazzoni Cirio because they were built on top of an old food factory.
Working as laborers in the fields of Central Italy often means working without a contract, linked to a “corporal” who assigns grueling shifts, without adequate protection, in a condition of extreme vulnerability that can lead to the use of petty crime. Over the years there has been talk of Mondragone for both cases of prostitution e exploitation child among the Bulgarian community, both for some episodes of violence and tensions with the Italian community.
The situation of the Bulgarian community had become even more problematic when a coronavirus outbreak was found in the former Cirio neighborhood earlier this week. Local authorities had activated rather quickly and made about 800 swabs, the first of which had revealed several positive cases. On June 22, the Campania region, led by the center-left, had therefore decided to establish a red zone by imposing severe restrictions on movements until June 30.
But several Bulgarian people yesterday morning – Republic says 50, the Corriere della Sera speaks of “hundreds” – they organized a demonstration to ask for more assistance, “claiming the right to go to work in the fields because without that (black) job they don’t have the money to eat or even to buy diapers”, writes the Courier service. Shortly after the demonstration was stopped and dispersed by the police.
The protests of the Bulgarian community, however, triggered a series of other demonstrations, organized by the Italians. In the early afternoon about fifty people showed up under the Palazzoni Cirio asking for measures for the demonstration of a few hours before: in the afternoon the crowd increased – also thanks to the mobilization of the local extreme right – and the violence began.
A group of Italian people vandalized a van, allegedly owned by a person from the Bulgarian community, and detached the license plate of another car and exhibited it as a trophy. “The Italians ask for” health security “but gather under the buildings, one on top of the other, many without a mask”, he noticed the Morning.
In the meantime, racist chants and other insults were shouted against the Bulgarians. A woman interviewed by Fanpage – who shortly before the interview asked the policemen present “why are you Italians against us?” – he said: «they were in quarantine, in the red zone, but they came out to challenge the Mondragonese […] we don’t want these people, they have to leave, they are gypsies ».
The situation in Mondragone has also been taken up by far-right politicians. The secretary of the League, Matteo Salvini, released on Twitter a video entitled “Chaos in Mondragone, Roma and Bulgarians in revolt”, a montage of some moments of the demonstration of the Bulgarian community with threatening music in the background, then promised that the next week he will make a rally in Mondragone. The leader of Fratelli d’Italia, Giorgia Meloni, has taken up the request of the local party to leave the management of the Bulgarian community to the army.
Protests continued in the evening: a group of demonstrators blocked the movement of a road, others continued to target policemen and carabinieri. Around 20, the 50 soldiers sent by the Ministry of the Interior also arrived, as well as 70 policemen arrived from Rome to help local authorities manage the situation.
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