NEWS

Two arrested over shooting of migrant farm workers in Nea Manolada

Police have reportedly arrested two suspects in connection with the shooting of more than 30 Bangladeshi workers in the Nea Manolada area of the Peloponnese during a dispute over back pay on Wednesday.

Police are looking for two more suspects, Skai reports.

The incident occurred when some 200 workers allegedly demanded six months’ worth of unpaid wages from their employer in the region of Ilia.

The pickers became involved in an argument with three Greek supervisors, at least one of whom fired at the migrants with a shotgun.

Local reports said that as many as 30 workers were injured in the incident, with several of them said to be in a critical condition on Wednesday night.

Manolada has been at the center of cases involving violence against migrant workers a number of times in recent years. Last year, two Greek men were arrested for beating a 30-year-old Egyptian, jamming his head in the window of a car door and dragging him for around one kilometer.

In 2008, migrants working on farms in New Manolada, known for its strawberries, went on a four-day strike to protest poverty wages and squalid living conditions.

In a statement late Wednesday, left SYRIZA opposition condemned the incident as a “criminal, racist act.”

On Thursday, Greece’s Communist Party (KKE) slammed the “modern-day slave trade and the inhuman labor conditions of migrant workers.” A statement released by the party said “barbarism is synonymous with the present system, that of capitalism.”

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