Four migrant farmworkers were burned alive in southern Italy after allegedly demanding better pay and working conditions, in a murder that Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said had “shocked us all.”
Two Pakistani nationals, Safeer Ahmed and Ali Raza, both 31, have been arrested on suspicion of premeditated murder after the victims were trapped inside a minivan in Amendolara, near Cosenza, in northern Calabria.
The dead have been named as Waseem Khan, a 29-year-old Pakistani, and three Afghan Pashtuns: Amin Fazal Khogjani, 28, Ullah Ismat Qiemi, 19, and Safi Iayjad, 27.
A fifth worker, 35-year-old Afghan Mohammad Taj Alamyar, survived the massacre after breaking the rear window of the vehicle and escaping the flames. His testimony has now placed the killings at the center of a wider debate about slave-like conditions in Italy’s agricultural sector.
According to investigators, the workers were locked inside the minivan before flammable liquid was poured into the vehicle and it was set alight. The suspects allegedly carried out the attack because the men had been demanding better pay and conditions, as reported by Ansa.
The survivor reportedly told investigators that the victims had worked in strawberry fields between Calabria and Basilicata but had not been paid properly. “They gave us food and shelter, but no money,” he said.
He also claimed that a “large Pakistani mafia” operates in the agricultural sector and said the two arrested suspects had threatened him and the other workers with knives and pistols to force them to work.
The killings took place near a gas station on the SS106 state highway in Amendolara. Firefighters were initially called to what appeared to be a vehicle fire, only to discover the charred remains of four people inside the minivan after the flames had been extinguished.
Security camera footage from the area reportedly helped investigators piece together the attack. Police say the images show two people blocking the vehicle doors from the outside while flammable liquid appears to be poured in through the tailgate. A flash of flame is then seen before the attackers flee.
TG2 broadcast footage of the vehicle and the smoke from the blaze.
Meloni said the first arrests were “an important step towards establishing the truth and determining responsibility.”
“The horrific murder of the four farm workers in Calabria has shocked us all. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.
“Italy does not back down 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,” she added.
The victims were identified through documents found at an apartment in Villapiana, where they had been living with other migrants, including the sole survivor. Their bodies were so badly burned that investigators had to rely on those papers to confirm their identities.
Italy’s largest trade union federation, CGIL, estimates that up to 230,000 seasonal agricultural workers in the country have no employment contract, more than a quarter of the sector’s workforce.
The union described the killings as an “unspeakable horror” and called on politicians to act against what it called the “inhumane daily life that many workers, often migrants, experience in our fields.”
Francesco Savino, the Bishop of Cassano allo Ionio in Calabria, also condemned the exploitation of foreign workers.
“Enough of the disastrous habit of considering it normal for people who have come from afar to harvest, work, live, and die here like bodies without a history,” he said.
Investigators are also examining whether the killings may be linked to wider tensions within migrant labor networks in the area. Several vehicles belonging to Pakistani migrants have reportedly been targeted in arson attacks in recent months.
One Response
Who’s surprised that Tuckers friends would do that? Nobody!!