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Race wars in the orange groves of Italy
Via nazionale in Rosarno used to be busy just after dawn. Every day in the half-light, hundreds of black faces jostled to get the nod from men in estate cars and MPVs; immigrants from Ghana, Burkino Faso and Ivory Coast, each of them desperate to earn €15 for a punishing 12-hour day picking fruit in the surrounding citrus groves.
This week, however, there were no black faces to be seen in this small town in the region of Calabria on the "toe" of Italy, just a few Moroccans and eastern Europeans, loitering in the hope of a day's work.
An uneasy peace has settled on Rosarno after last week's pogrom, which saw over 1,000 immigrants flee to detention centres for their own safety following confrontations with police and locals. The remaining Romanian and North African immigrants walk the streets quickly, with their heads down, in this poor, shabby, agricultural town, with its earthquake-torn centre of hastily built concrete. The locals now talk matter-of-factly about an immigrant population that is chiaro–light-coloured. Elhafian Boubker is a 35-year old Moroccan who works with the Omnia immigrant association. "There are still a few blacks here," he said, "but they're frightened to come out of their homes."