They are images from a surveillance camera of rare brutality: two men pumping gasoline into the interior of a minivan using the fuel filler neck. They then set the car on fire and locked the doors from the outside. You can see in horror how the Fiat Ulisse rocks back and forth as the remaining occupants try to free themselves. Only one in five succeeds. The perpetrators finally run away.
This is the scene that took place in broad daylight near the 3,000-inhabitant community of Amendolara, at a gas station on the busy state highway 106, in the deep south. Any help comes too late for four men in the car: Ismat, Fazal, Waseem and Safi. All four from Afghanistan and Pakistan. All four are employed as harvest helpers in the strawberry fields in the area, for cheap wages and under conditions that can hardly be described as humane. All four burned alive.
Bad working conditions have long been known
Italy is horrified by the quadruple murder. And it reminds many of how immigrants are employed in their country. It has long been known that, especially in the south of Italy, where fruit and vegetables are grown on a large scale, the working conditions in some places are inhumane. The hourly wage is often no more than three euros. All in all, it is estimated that more than 200,000 people work in such conditions in Italy’s agricultural sector. What is harvested there often ends up in German supermarkets.
Many call this modern slavery. Some also speak of a “farm workers mafia” that is strictly organized and has ties to the ‘Ndrangheta, Italy’s most powerful criminal organization, based in Calabria. So-called capos, often migrants who have made it up the hierarchy, take care of the recruitment of foreign low-wage workers, their accommodation and financial matters.
Two men are in custody
That was obviously the case with the quadruple murder. Based on the images from the surveillance cameras, two men from Pakistan who are now in custody were identified as the suspected perpetrators. The two are also burdened by the only survivor: Taj Alamyar, 35 years old, from Afghanistan and has been in Italy for a few months. He was also in the car, but was able to escape through the rear window.
With severe burns on his hands, Alamyar reports that he was housed with the others on a mattress in a small farmhouse nearby, for a daily wage of 45 euros. Actually. But: “We demanded our payment every day. But they always found an excuse. And charged us five euros for the journey to work. Five euros there, five euros back. At home we were given bread and potatoes, nothing else.”
On the morning of the crime there was another argument. “They pointed a gun at us: ‘Shut up or you’ll be killed.'” Then they went back to the fields. On the way back there was another argument until the capos stopped at the gas station. “They wanted to teach us a lesson. They want to make it clear to the farmworkers here in the region that orders are not discussed.”
Bishop: “Enough with the comfortable silence”
That is currently the assumption of the investigators: that an example should be made. In recent months, cars used to transport agricultural workers have burned several times. It is now also being examined whether the deaths of four Indian harvest workers last year were actually a traffic accident.
After the horror of the quadruple murder, it is now a question of what consequences must be drawn. A bishop from Calabria, Francesco Savino, demands: “Enough with the comfortable silence. Enough with the shabby habit of considering it normal that men from far away die with us like corpses without stories.” In Italy there is a law against exploitative methods in agriculture. There is a risk of high fines and up to eight years in prison.
