Police arrested an intoxicated Somali migrant in St. Gallen, Switzerland, after he attacked a female bus driver and attempted to steal her vehicle.
The 29-year-old Somali was reportedly arguing with another individual at the bus stop, and the altercation continued after both had boarded. Police said that the bus driver attempted to calm the two men, leading to the attack by the Somalian migrant.
According to Swiss newspaper Blick, the migrant slapped the driver in the face before biting her.
The Somalian attempted to hijack the bus with all of the passengers on board but was prevented when the bus driver took the keys away from the intoxicated man. All of the passengers then left the bus, and the driver was able to lock the migrant inside until police arrived on the scene.
The head of the St. Gallen public transport company, Ralf Eigenmann, congratulated the actions of the bus driver saying: “It’s very good how she handled it.” He added that the driver was able to give the migrant over to the police “on a silver platter”.
Eigenmann added that it was unlikely the migrant would have been able to drive away with the bus, saying that they are difficult to operate and require training.
The attack comes only months after a Senegalese migrant in Italy, who was himself a bus driver, set fire to a bus containing 51 children to enact revenge Italy’s migrant policy, telling officers after his arrest: “I wanted to avenge the deaths at sea. I’ll commit a massacre in Linate.” None of the children was seriously injured.
Attacks on buses by migrants have occurred in several European countries since the height of the migrant crisis in 2015, including an attack in 2017 in Siena, Italy, in which an African migrant stabbed a bus driver in the chest.