A bus driver hijacked a bus full of children in Milan, Italy, and set it on fire.
Rabat – A 47-year-old Senegalese-Italian abducted a school bus carrying 51 children in Milan and set it ablaze in a protest over Italy’s migration policy on Wednesday. Police rescued all of the children.
Police reached through smashed windows at the back of the bus to rescue the children, some of whom were tied up, and arrested the driver.
Some of the children managed to hide their phones and alerted the police who able to rescue them in time. None of the children received serious injuries, although 14 people experienced smoke inhalation, according to the BBC.
The driver allegedly said “No-one will survive” as he set the bus on fire.
One of the children told Italian reporters that the driver had threatened to pour petrol on them and burn them alive.
“It was a miracle, it could have been a massacre,” Milan chief prosecutor Francesco Greco said.
The bus driver was reportedly angry over the Italian immigration policy and the deaths of migrants in the Mediterranean.
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A teacher, who was riding along with the schoolchildren on the bus, said it was not the first time that the man drove a school bus with children inside.
Meanwhile, a schoolgirl told Italian news outlet Ansa that the man kept repeating: “People in Africa are dying.” He said “it was the fault of Di Maio and Salvini,” referring to Italian Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio and the far-right interior minister, Matteo Salvini.
In September 2018, the Italian government approved a decree proposed by Salvini, suspending the asylum process for the “socially dangerous” undocumented migrants who are not “escaping war.”
Salvini also blocked NGO rescue ships from entering Italian ports to reduce the number of migrants arriving in Italy by sea.
The bill, according to Salvini, was a “step forward to making Italy safer.”
