At least six people are said to have been shot in attack described as racially motivated
A man has opened fire on pedestrians in the Italian city of
Macerata, injuring several
African migrants in an attack that police said appeared to be racially motivated.
Local media reported that at least six migrants, five men and a woman, had been shot by a man driving and firing from his car window.
Police told residents to stay out of the way and avoid open places before announcing that a man had been arrested.
The state broadcaster Rai said the suspect was a white Italian man who came from Macerata.
Corriere della Sera reported that a man had fired from a car window at two young African migrants shortly after 11am local time, wounding one. A short while later two other migrants, including a woman, were shot.
It was not immediately clear how serious their injuries were.
The
shootings happened days after the dismembered body of an 18-year-old Italian woman, Pamela Mastropietro, was discovered in two suitcases near Macerata, in the Marche region around the city, about 125 miles (200km) north-east of Rome.
A 29-year-old Nigerian has been arrested in connection with the woman’s death.
Rightwing politicians campaigning before national elections on 4 March leapt on Mastropietro’s gruesome death to promote their anti-migrant message.
A preliminary postmortem was unable to establish the cause of her death. The suspect, who was denied asylum last year but has remained in Italy, has refused to talk to police.
“What was this worm still doing in Italy?” Matteo Salvini, the head of the far-right Northern League, wrote on Facebook, accusing the centre-left government of responsibility for Mastropietro’s death for allowing migrants to stay in the country. “The left has blood on its hands.”
Magistrates say witnesses saw the suspect carrying the suitcases that were later found to contain the teenager’s body. They also found blood-stained clothes and knives in his possession.