Italy's immigration crisis moves from sea to streets
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Rome (AFP) - "Why do they have to be taken care of? It's me that needs taking care of!"
Like many of Italy's poor, 51-year-old Elvio has had enough. And the unemployed construction worker thinks he knows who to blame.
Born and raised in a rundown suburb of Rome where residents last week laid violent siege to a holding centre for asylum seekers, Elvio belongs to a strata of Italian society whose frustration is beginning to boil over after years of falling incomes, employment and hope.
And with the country struggling to cope with an influx of tens of thousands of migrants fleeing conflict and poverty in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, that anger increasingly has a focus.
"Even God has abandoned us," said Elvio, leaning on a bar in Tor Sapienza, a district on the eastern edge of Rome.
With numerous abandoned properties, some of which have been squatted by illegal immigrants, the "quartiere" has certainly seen better days.
The number of non-Italians living here is higher than in other parts of the capital.
Yet it is worlds away from the bleak housing estates that dot the peripheries of cities like Paris or London and, to outsiders, last week's eruption of anger could easily appear rooted in ugly xenophobia.
"I'm not racist, but..." has become a recurring refrain as people like Elvio vent widely-held beliefs that immigrants get special treatment from the state and are responsible for increasing crime. ...
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