Thread: Immigrant protest turns violent in southern Italy

Sep 19, 3:51 PM EDT

Immigrant protest turns violent in southern Italy

ROME (AP) -- Hundreds of African immigrants took their anger over the alleged mafia killing of six Africans to the streets on Friday, hurling rocks and smashing windows in a town north of Naples.

Several hundred people participated in the demonstration, which continued into the evening, police said.

Television footage broadcast on Italian SkyTV24 showed protesters marching in the rain and blocking traffic. They taunted police who were deployed in vans and riot gear to control them as they marched more than six miles along a state highway.

One protester threw himself in front of a car before being pulled away by a police officer.

The ANSA news agency reported that some people in the crowd were armed with broken bottles and shouted insults about Italians.

The demonstrators were protesting the shooting deaths of six immigrants from Ghana, Togo and Liberia late Thursday in what authorities say may have been a hit by the Camorra crime syndicate - punishment for trying to compete in the drug trade.

The victims were slain by automatic gunfire as they stood outside a store that sold ethnic goods in Castel Volturno, a town of 22,000 people about 20 miles north of Naples. A seventh immigrant was being treated for injuries suffered in the shooting, ANSA reported.

The protesters denied the victims were involved in drug trafficking, news reports said.

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Sep 19, 3:10 PM EDT

Spain: Jobless immigrants paid to go home

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