Italian citizens clash with police on migrant issue

Citizens in two Italian cities clashed with police on Friday protesting the arrival of groups of African migrants into new refugee centers in unused buildings, local reports said.

Protestors in a northern district of capital Rome broke through a cordon which protected the migrants, forcing police to reply with a baton charge. Some of them shouted slogans against the migrants, while others threw bottles and various objects at a bus carrying them.

"We have sent 19 migrants who must be placed in Casale San Nicola (a former school in Rome), but there is a road block of citizens who do not allow them to enter. We are clearing the block and will go ahead as planned," Rome Prefect Franco Gabrielli was quoted as saying by Rome-based Il Messaggero newspaper.

A total of 14 policemen were reported to have been injured amid the clashes, while two protestors were arrested.

Meanwhile, authorities in Treviso, a city in northern Italy, announced that a group of over 100 migrants hosted at a building outside the city will be moved away by the end of this week, following days of heated protests by local residents.

"It was a great victory," one of the residents was quoted as saying by La Tribuna di Treviso local newspaper after the authorities on Friday announced their decision to move the migrants.

Residents complained they had not been informed about the arrival of migrants who would have brought security problems besides causing a depreciation of properties in the area. Others defended themselves from the accusation of being racist. "We only want to continue to live a normal life," one of them said.

The migrant issue has made the Italian headlines in recent months, which have seen the countless arrivals of migrants fleeing North African poverty- and unrest-stricken nations via Mediterranean Sea into the southern coasts of Italy.

As existing refugee centers have been overcrowded with the increasing flows, the government has decided to place groups of migrants in unused buildings and hotels, often in suburbs which live thrive on tourism and have denounced a lack of security and of health measures.

The move has fueled social discontent and anti-immigrant sentiments among Italian residents as well as political dispute between the center-left government of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and center-right opposition forces.

European leaders have met several times on the issue and have recently launched a naval operation against human traffickers in the Mediterranean who make business out of migrants' despair and have led thousands of migrants to lose their life at sea.

According to figures of the Italian interior ministry released Thursday, Italy has received 82,464 migrants by sea so far in 2015, as much as 9 percent more compared to the same period last year.

On Friday, a 10-year-old girl was reported by Rai state television to have died during the perilous sea crossing in a boat which was carrying 335 migrants from Egypt, Syria and Sudan to southern Italy.