Moroccan Family Victim of Possible Hate Crime in Italy

Unidentified individuals set fire to the apartment of a Moroccan family on Saturday, March 3 in Genoa, Italy.

A woman and her 9-year-old daughter miraculously escaped death after their apartment was set fire to at 3 AM on Saturday while they were still asleep. The neighbors of the Moroccan family immediately called the firefighters, who rushed to the location of the incident and extinguished the fire.

The Moroccan expatriate and her daughter were then transported to the hospital, along with two neighbors who had been injured. Other residents escaped to the roof to avoid suffocation from the smoke.

Firefighters have ascertained that the incident was preplanned. They found gasoline-soaked fabrics just outside the apartment which were used to ignite the fire, as well as bottles of flammable and combustible liquids at the building’s entrance.

The Moroccan family had allegedly been dwelling in the municipality-owned apartment illegally without an official contract.

Italian authorities have begun an investigatio to find out if the attack was motivated by xenophobia or resentment of the family’s reported illegal occupation of the apartment.

Source :Morocco World News