MILAN (AP) – Italian police detained several dozen people Wednesday outside Milan’s main train station as the city deals with a new wave of migrants.
Police said Wednesday they detained 36 people in a move aimed at combating increasing criminality around the heavily used station.
The blitz comes a week after a Guinean immigrant stabbed a police officer in front of the station and weeks after a 20-year-old Italian-Tunisian man who had been previously arrested on drug charges pulled a knife on two soldiers and a police officer inside the station. The Guinean was later expelled.
Italian cities are under renewed pressure with the arrival of tens of thousands of migrants in the south and ever-tighter border controls in the north. Milan’s Central Station has continued to be a gathering spot, despite efforts to move migrants to shelters and other locations in the city.
Milan’s official for security, Carmela Rozza, said officials are committed to ensuring safety for commuters and tourists passing through the station and to transform the piazza outside the station into a place where people can gather for events.
“Everything that we have done so far has not been sufficient. We will continue until it is clear to the delinquents that the Central Station is not a place to loiter,” Rozza told reporters following the police action.
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