carabinieri_genericoAn Italian paramilitary policemen on Wednesday in southern Italy shot dead an African migrant worker who allegedly attacked him with knife.

The Carabinieri officer and a colleague were called to a sprawling tent camp in San Fernando in the province of Reggio Calabria after a fight broke out between the migrant and a co-worker.

The police officer claims he shot the migrant in self-defence after he was stabbed by him as he tried to break up the fight, which allegedly broke out over a stolen wallet.

The squalid tent camp houses hundreds upon thousands of migrant agricultural workers who work in the orange groves around the Calabrian port of Gioia Tauro.

San Ferdinando on the outskirts of the Calabrian town of Rosarno, has been the scene of repeated clashes between migrants, many of whom hail from sub-Saharan Africa. Over 1,000 Africans fled the camp in 2010 and scores were injured after two days of clashes between migrants, police and locals.

 

(AdnKronos/AKI)