A Senegalese man in Italy hijacked his own bus carrying 51 middle school children this week, brandishing a knife, binding the children, threatening to kill them and also setting the bus on fire in what is seen as an act of revenge for migrants who have died trying to swim across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.
Here is video after the man, 47-year-old Ousseynou Sy, hijacked the bus and began aggressively ramming through other cars on the highway. Be advised that you can hear children screaming in the video.
#Breaking: Just in – #Milan The bus driver in #Italy has been identified! He a an Migrant with #Senegalese origin who tried to commit suicide inside a bus full of Italian children on fire! Warning Shocking video footage. pic.twitter.com/oa8K5CKfNz
— Sotiri Dimpinoudis (@sotiridi) March 20, 2019
According to authorities, Sy said, “No one will survive.” The driver allegedly tried to commit suicide.
“No one will survive today.” Bus driver abducts 51 schoolchildren in Italy https://t.co/I8tftx4iN2 pic.twitter.com/EaTeOHoOEl
— TIME (@TIME) March 20, 2019
A police spokesman said Sy also shouted, “Stop the deaths at sea, I’ll carry out a massacre,” the Telegraph reported.
The entire incident lasted about 40 minutes, after Sy began driving the bus from Cremona to Milan. Police were eventually able to break the bus windows and the children were able to escape the burning bus. The bus burned after Sy had doused it with gasoline and set it on fire.
An Italian school bus driver of Senegalese origin took 51 seventh-graders hostage in northern Italy, pouring gasoline on the bus floor and later setting it afire. He said he wanted to avenge “the migrants who drown in the Mediterranean.” https://t.co/Su4MLcxzam
— New York Times World (@nytimesworld) March 21, 2019
No one was killed, but 12 children were being treated at a nearby hospital for “bruises, smoke inhalation or because they were suffering from shock,” according to the Telegraph; one child was said to have severe burns.
#Breaking: Just in – School bus Driver in #Italy put bus on fire in an alleged suicide attempt, Twelve children have been brought to the hospital, one child severely injured with burn marks. pic.twitter.com/kaOBQOLStR
— Sotiri Dimpinoudis (@sotiridi) March 20, 2019
Sy was arrested and faces possible terrorism charges, as well as kidnapping, attempted mass murder, causing a fire and resisting arrest.
The suspect obtained his Italian citizenship in 2004 and has a criminal record that includes drunk driving and convictions for sexual molestation.
Italy is in shock after the dramatic rescue of 51 children who were taken hostage by their school bus driver who torched the vehicle in protest at Mediterranean migrant deathshttps://t.co/lg60vkXVOL
— AFP news agency (@AFP) March 21, 2019
There have been thousands of migrant deaths, including West Africans and Libyans, in the Mediterranean throughout past years, as migrants try to escape their home countries and seek asylum in Europe.
This year, 282 migrants have died, the Telegraph reported, noting that migration has slowed the past year after Italy declared last summer that it would stop taking any rescued asylum seekers via its ports.
One of the children on the bus told the media that they were handcuffed and threatened.
One child said, “He kept saying that people in Africa are dying and the fault is [Luigi] Di Maio and [Matteo] Salvini’s,” two Italian politicians.
Another child, 12, said, “He said he had lost three children, that many children die at sea, so we should die too, by being burned. I was afraid I would die,” the Telegraph reported.
