Coronavirus: Six dead after Italian prison riots over new measures

At least six inmates are reported to have died after riots in Italian jails over hard-line measures introduced to contain coronavirus in the country.

Footage on social media showed a number of prisoners standing on the roof of the San Vittore prison in Milan.

Other images show smoke rising from the jail in Milan after prisoners set fire to the building. Local media said at least two of the deaths in a prison in Modena are being blamed on drug overdoses.

Prisoners at jails in Naples and Poggioreale in the south, Frosinone in central Italy and at Alexandria in the north-west also revolted over measures including a ban on family visits, unions said.

Similar scenes played out in Padova in the north and Bari, Foggia and Palermo in the south, media reports said.

Prisoners are rioting over the strict new measures introduced. AFP

According to the secretary general of the prison officers union in Seppe, Giovanni Battista Durante, about 80 prisoners at the Modena prison were transferred to other jails after they managed to reach an outside yard in a bid to escape.

"We are told other prisoners inside the jail have barricaded themselves in and probably have illegal weapons," he said, and the jail had been "completely destroyed".

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Italy poised to lock down millions in Lombardy after jump in cases

The uprisings came as Italy issued new nationwide rules to try to stem the spread of the virus, which has killed 366 people so far and infected 7,375 in the country.

The quarantine has effectively locked down 16 million people in northern Italy.

It is now the second-worst affected country in the world, behind China.

"We had already warned tensions were growing in prisons, and that we feared it could end in tragedy," said rights group Antigone.

"All necessary measures must be taken to ensure prisoners their full rights, stopping this escalation of tension and preventing others from dying. One death is already too much."

At the Torre del Gallo jail in Pavia, south of Milan, two guards were reportedly taken temporarily hostage, enabling prisoners to steal the keys and release their fellow convicts.

Italian media said there were unconfirmed reports of violence against guards and between rival prison gangs.

The Poggioreale prison in Naples suffered millions of euros in damages after about 1,000 prisoners rioted, la Repubblica reported.

Relatives of inmates look at smoke inside Rebibbia Prison in Rome. Reuters

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Conflict, drought, famine

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.

Band Aid

Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.

Scoreline

Syria 1-1 Australia

Syria Al Somah 85'

Australia Kruse 40'

Ain Dubai in numbers

126: The length in metres of the legs supporting the structure

1 football pitch: The length of each permanent spoke is longer than a professional soccer pitch

16 A380 Airbuses: The equivalent weight of the wheel rim.

9,000 tonnes: The amount of steel used to construct the project.

5 tonnes: The weight of each permanent spoke that is holding the wheel rim in place

192: The amount of cable wires used to create the wheel. They measure a distance of 2,4000km in total, the equivalent of the distance between Dubai and Cairo.