Josephine Mckenna
Aug 01 2022
SCREENGRAB/TWITTER
An attack in which a Nigerian street vendor was wrestled to the ground and killed has been likened to the killing of George Floyd in the US in 2020.
Content warning: This story contains details of violence which some readers may find distressing.
Footage of a Nigerian man being beaten to death in front of onlookers in a small Italian town has prompted protests and claims of worsening racism in the country.
Alika Ogorchukwu, a 39-year-old street vendor, was beaten with his own crutch on a busy street in the coastal town of Civitanova Marche around lunchtime on Friday (local time) after reportedly directing a comment to the female companion of the man who killed him.
The attacker reportedly used his knee to crush Ogorchukwu’s head to the ground, prompting comparisons by one Italian newspaper to the killing of George Floyd by police in the US state of Minneapolis in 2020.
There was widespread anger and dismay on social media after several onlookers filmed the killing but failed to intervene. In the video, which has been widely shared on social media, a voice is heard shouting: “You will kill him like that”.
Police have arrested a 32-year-old Italian man on suspicion of murder.
Ogorchukwu’s wife, Charity Oriachi, said on Sunday that she was struggling to come to terms with her husband’s brutal murder and feels shocked at the failure of witnesses to intervene.
CHIARA GABRIELLI/AP
Charity Oriachi is demanding justice after her husband's murder.
“I just want to say I lived for my husband. I want justice,” Oriachi said from her home, where she was surrounded by friends and supporters.
Oriachi joined dozens of protesters in a street protest in Civitanova on Saturday, where another protest is planned next weekend. Ogorchukwu, the father of an 8-year-old son, was well-known in the town.
Italian politicians across the spectrum have spoken out against the Marche murder but Giorgia Meloni, leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy, and Matteo Salvini, head of the right-wing Northern League, were criticised for taking too long to react to the murder on Saturday.
Salvini used the incident to complain about crime levels and later published figures highlighting a jump in undocumented migrant arrivals. Meloni said there was “no justification for such brutality”.
CHIARA GABRIELLI/AP
A woman places a bouquet of flowers where Ogorchukwu was killed.
Ogorchukwu’s killing has focused fresh attention on the Marche region where Luca Traini, a far-right extremist, shot and wounded six African migrants in Macerata in February 2018, just weeks before previous national elections.
Daniel Amanze, the president of the non-profit Migrant Services Association in Marche, accused the country’s right-wing politicians of promoting a xenophobic climate of racism and hatred that had worsened since the Macerata attack.
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“There is zero tolerance, people can react however they want,” Amanze told The Telegraph. “We are living in fear. Politicians speak about security, but it’s not for all citizens.”
Fabrizio Ciarapica, the newly elected, centre-right mayor of Civitanova, defended his town on Facebook, saying it was a “generous, peaceful and supportive” community and that the council had pledged to provide €15,000 (NZ$24,384) to the victim’s family for funeral expenses and other support.
In a separate incident, a Moroccan man is in a critical condition in hospital after he was stabbed in a bar in the town of Recanati, around 13 miles from Civitanova Marche, on Friday night.
The Telegraph
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