https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVFVis-2avU


'Mum, the driver wants to kill us': Survivors of Italy's school bus hijack describe terror

Witnesses have described the terrifying moment when a bus driver took more than 50 schoolchildren and teachers hostage onboard a coach that he then set on fire.

"He let us on to the bus and immediately barricaded us in," a teaching assistant said, recounting how the school bus hijacking in Italy unfolded before 51 children escaped as the driver torched the vehicle.

"I was a second away from death," Tiziana Magarini told AFPTV on Thursday, her eyes still red and her voice unsteady a day after the harrowing incident.

On Wednesday, a 10-minute bus trip turned into a 40-minute nightmare for schoolchildren in Crema, east of Milan, after their driver hijacked the vehicle and tried to drive it to a Milan airport.

Driver Ousseynou Sy was usually "very well behaved, normal," Magarini said. But on Wednesday, the Italian bus driver of Senegalese origin came to work with a knife and cans of petrol. Seeking to draw attention to migrant deaths in the Mediterranean, Sy tied the two teachers to the door and told Magarini to tie up the children, using electric cable.

She said she "tied them up badly", so they could get free. When Sy collected everyone's mobile phone, "I managed to let some of the children know with my eyes to keep them," she added. Sy then asked her to finish pouring the petrol over seats and curtains, as the children panicked.

"The screaming, I couldn't calm them down," Magarini said. "He was saying weird things, I didn't really understand. He was talking a lot about Linate airport. But he didn't say what he wanted to do. He said 'I don't want to hurt you' and then he threatened us."

"No one is getting out of here alive," Sy reportedly told the students as he diverted from the route back to school and took the motorway to the airport.

"He said repeatedly that so many people in Africa keep dying," said one girl.

The bus stopped and started several times while children telephoned for help. One said they called police who didn't understand. They then called their father.

'The driver wants to kill us'

Another boy exchanged voice messages with his mother. "Mum, we're on the bus, I don't know where they're taking us... the driver wants to kill us, he has a gun, call the police," the recorded message said, according to Italian media. Magarini discreetly called the school switchboard, where a colleague picked up and heard children screaming.

As police cars converged on the bus to stop it, "the children were banging on the windows, calling for help," said policeman Roberto Manucci, one of the first on the scene.

The driver crashed through a roadblock, taking out a car, before being trapped by others. Several police distracted him at the front of the hijacked bus while colleagues forced open the back door and smashed windows.

"I heard an explosion at the back window and in two seconds an amazing team was there, they got them all out," said Magarini.

Amateur video shows the terrifying moment as the children ran away screaming and crying. At the same time, Sy set fire to the petrol-soaked vehicle with a lighter before being subdued by police. Trapped next to the driver, Magarini was dragged to safety by a policeman.

"I was a second away from death," she said.

Police carried out a hostage rescue operation "like you see in films about special forces", said Milan prosecutor Francesco Greco.


https://www.thelocal.it/20190321/mum-the-driver-wants-to-kill-us-survivors-of-italys-school-bus-hijack-describe-ordeal

Pics: https://milano.corriere.it/foto-gallery/cronaca/19_marzo_20/paullese-attentatore-dirotta-da-fuoco-un-autobus-una-scolaresca-b62e29aa-4b0c-11e9-84f1-6f7b19b096e5.shtml

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSxwGreO5es

This is the moment when Ousseynou Sy filled up his canister with petrol as recorded on CCTV.



'Africa, Rise up'

The driver was apprehended and treated for burns. Prosecutors described him as a 47-year-old Italian citizen of Senegalese origin and said he told authorities he wanted to vindicate Europe-bound migrants who have died in the Mediterranean Sea but did not plan to hurt anyone.

However, prosecutors said the suspect, identified as Ousseynou Sy, made preparations that showed his actions were premediated, such as buying a canister of gasoline and restraints on Tuesday.

He also sent a video to friends in Italy and Senegal indicating plans for a bold action and with the message, “Africa, Rise up,” they said.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/mar/20/ousseynou-sy-italy-bus-driver-sent-africa-rise-mes/

Bottom pic: Knife found at scene of carnage.

These are the two unlikely heroes from the kidnapping. The first is Ramy Shehata, a 13-year-old Egyptian boy who called the police aboard the school bus that was hijacked and later set ablaze by a Senegalese bus driver. His father said he would like to see his son get Italian citizenship.

The second unnamed boy managed to open the back door of the school bus today ensuring the getaway for all of the 51 children inside the burning bus.

“He tied us to the floor covered in petrol and took our phones away so we couldn’t call the police,” one of the 51 children held hostage in a school bus set on fire by a driver of Senegalese origin who wanted revenge for migrants “dying at sea”.

Clearly this guy is deranged. Doing this to a bus-load of kids in a foreign country automatically makes you public enemy no.1. His life will be hell from now on.

Update on story:

Italy to grant citizenship to student hero who saved dozens of children on hijacked school bus

Italian police say a quick-thinking student hid himself and called authorities when a school bus carrying 51 children was hijacked and set on fire by its driver. Because of his heroic act, the Interior Ministry says it will speed up granting citizenship to the student, who is from Egypt, and the ministry will also cover the costs of the citizenship process.

The mayor of Crema's secretary said the student pretended to pray in Arabic while, in reality, he was warning his father, who alerted police of the hijacking.

None of the pupils, aged between 11 and 13, was hurt after police arrived and broke the back windows to free the passengers, a police spokesman told CNN.

The driver, named by police as 47-year-old Ousseynou Sy, a Senegal-born Italian citizen, was arrested and faces attempted murder, kidnapping, resisting arrest and arson charges

Carabinieri spokesman Marco Palmieri said the bus was supposed to return to the school in Crema, northern Italy, after the pupils attended a gym session on Wednesday. Instead it headed toward Milan's Linate airport.

"The driver doused petrol on the bus and threatened to blow it up," said Palmieri. "He requested all the children's mobile phones -- but one kid managed to hide and called us."

"Apparently he told the driver 'I didn't bring my phone today.' You know how canny kids are these days," Palmieri added.
Carabinieri took the threat seriously and immediately rushed to the scene, outside Milan, Palmieri said. The driver made teachers on the bus tie up some of the students with cable ties and had a knife, authorities said.

"While some colleagues were negotiating with him, others smashed the windows and got the passengers off the bus," he continued. "That's when the driver set the bus on fire."

'Little hero'

The Carabinieri of Sandonato Milanese identified the student as 13-year-old Ramy Shehata. The office of Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said it would grant citizenship to Shehata.
"The Interior Ministry is ready to take on the expenses and speed up the procedures to recognize citizenship for the little hero. The hope is to attribute ... citizenship to Ramy and remove it from the bus driver," said a statement from the interior ministry.

Carabinieri who received Shehata's call said the teenager was able to give them the bus' exact location over the phone and said his actions were "essential for the rescue."

"Ramy called us and had his head down looking through the glass door and was able to read the signs on the road, giving an exact location of where the bus was and where it was going."

The driver has been previously convicted of sexual assault and driving while intoxicated, according to police. He allegedly yelled "You're all going to die" and "I need to avenge the deaths in the Mediterranean," Palmieri said, in an apparent reference to migrant drownings in the Mediterranean.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/03/21/europe/italian-driver-school-bus-fire-intl-scli/index.html

Italy bus hijacker wanted kids as human shields for Africa escape:


The driver of a school bus who torched the vehicle to protest Mediterranean migrant deaths planned to use his young passengers as human shields and escape to Africa, Italian media on Friday (Mar 22) quoted him as saying.

"I wanted to get to the runway at (Milan's) Linate airport using the children as human shields and from there head to Africa by plane," Corriere della Sera daily quoted Ousseynou Sy as telling investigators.

"I didn't want to harm anybody," insisted the 47-year-old of Senegalese origin, who hijacked the bus Wednesday while taking 12-13 year-olds from a gym to school in Crema, east of Milan.

Armed with two petrol canisters and a cigarette lighter, Sy threatened the youngsters, took their telephones and told the adults to tie them up with electric cable.

Their 40-minute ordeal ended when police managed to smash windows open and get those onboard out just as Sy set fire to the vehicle.

Sy now faces having his Italian citizenship, obtained through marriage in 2004, revoked.

According to the Corriere della Sera, Sy has told investigators he hates white people for having "invaded and colonised" Africa, forcing Africans to emigrate and "die in the Mediterranean".


Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/italy-bus-hijacker-wanted-kids-as-human-shields-for-africa-11371310

Immigrant children on hijacked school bus to get Italian citizenship

Foreign children on the school bus hijacked near Milan last week are to be awarded Italian nationality, Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said on Wednesday, while indicating that they would have to wait until they're 18 to apply like anyone else.

The dramatic police rescue of 51 children on a bus hijacked by their Italian driver of Senegalese origin on March 20th has gripped Italy and rekindled debate about its citizenship laws.

"If there are children who are not Italian citizens, we have studied this question and we will complete the process so that they can become Italian," Salvini said after meeting five of the children and some of the police who saved them in Rome.

Salvini, the head of the anti-immigration League party, stressed that Italian nationality would be awarded "without any variation in the law, since the law exists and works, we do not change it".

Children of foreign parents who are born in Italy can only apply for citizenship when they reach 18.

It is not known how many of the children are concerned, but 14-year-old Ramy, born in Italy to Egyptian parents, and 13-year-old Moroccan Adam played key roles by calling police during the hijacking.

As some Italians and Ramy suggested changes to the citizenship law, Salvini had earlier told the boy: "Get elected and then you can make the law."

The previous centre-left government said it would change the law to make it easier to grant citizenship to foreigners born in Italy but the law was never passed, largely due to opposition from the League.


https://www.thelocal.it/20190327/immigrant-children-on-hijacked-school-bus-to-get-italian-citizenship