20100111
africanews

Italian police have intervened and rescued hundreds of African immigrants who were attacked by local residents at a town in the south of the country. The violence which broke out last week began when hundreds of immigrants, most of whom are Africans said to be employed illegally as farm laborers, went on a demonstration after some of them had been shot at by some unidentified people.
immigrants
The report said that the demonstrators set fire to cars and smashed windscreens before police intervened, leading to a scuffle that left several of the demonstrators wounded, according to a report by Italy's ANSA news agency.

Accordingly, the Italian authorities had to send in over 200 extra police on Saturday to evacuate the migrants after local indegious residents violently attacked the African farm workers protesting against their conditions.

Latest report said that 67 people got injured in the attack at the Calabrian town of Rosarno, where calm is said to have been generally restored by Saturday, with barricades erected by locals dismantled and shops opened for business.

Police said that 31 foreigners, 19 policemen and 17 locals were injured, after been fired at with shotgun on Saturday.

Nine buses with police escorts evacuated 320 immigrants early Saturday to a reception centre at Crotone, some 170 kilometres from the center of the scuffle in Rosarno. But the police said some 100 more immigrants had fled the town on their own, while preparations were on going to move another 300 to safer places.