A young Nigerian, 36-year-old Emmanuel Chidi Nnamdi, was beaten to his death in a rural Italian town over argument regarding a racist abuse that eventually turned violent.
Chidi, who arrived in Fermo, on Italy’s eastern coast, last November, he told immigration officials that he narrowly escaped Boko Haram church bombing, before fleeing Nigeria with his 24-year-old fiancée Chinyeri.
Nnamdi was walking along the central street of the sleepy town on Tuesday night when he ran across 35-year-old Amedeo Mancini, who was described by the media as an ‘ultra,’ a hardcore football fan.
Local media reported that Mancini began chanting insults at Namdi, and his partner, Chinyeri, whom he called “a monkey.” Several sources also reported that Mancini physically grabbed the woman.
As the two men began fighting, Mancini eventually pulled a traffic pole out of the ground, and began smashing Nnamdi’s head with it.
Nnamdi then went motionless, and was taken to hospital in a coma. He was unable to regain his consciousness and died hours later.
Mancini was immediately arrested, but his lawyer claims that he acted in self-defense and is horrified at the outcome.
“Amedeo Mancini is destroyed with pain. He did not want to kill, and he expresses his closeness to those who are crying for Emmanuel,” said legal counsel Francesco De Minicis. “My client did not expect that hitting the migrant would have this effect, and he places the episode in a defensive context.”
A vigil was held for the couple on Wednesday night, and Chinyeri cried out repeatedly “Why do you leave me in this wicked world?”
It is sad to note that Chinyeri had earlier lost a child to miscarriage on her way from Nigeria, according to reports from local media.
The couple had been wed by a local priest earlier this year, at the Catholic shelter where they had been living together.
According to Italy’s Interior Minister, Angelino Alfano, when he paid an emergency visit to Fermo, “The heart of Italy isn’t represented by those who carried out this murder,”
The government has said that Chinyeri will now be granted asylum.
