Antoine, a nearly 70-year-old migrant from the Ivory Coast, has died in Torretta Antonacci, a settlement of almost 2,000 immigrants in the San Severo countryside, Foggia. His death, reported by the Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) of Foggia agricultural workers, highlights severe systemic failures.
According to USB, Antoine’s death was not just due to the freezing shack he lived in, the 40-minute wait for an ambulance, or the lack of a defibrillator at a nearby guesthouse. It was also the result of bureaucracy—despite living in Torretta for a decade, he was denied registration with the San Severo municipality due to a missing stamp on his residence permit, preventing him from accessing a general practitioner.
“Antoine was one of the elderly figures of the ghetto, always kind and smiling despite the hardships,” USB stated. After working for years in a Treviso factory before returning to Foggia’s countryside, he struggled to secure his social pension. Although the INPS finally recognized his right to it after a lengthy legal battle, he could never collect it due to the lack of an identity document.
USB has demanded that Antoine’s tragic death not go unnoticed, calling on the San Severo municipality to ensure his burial—his body remains in the morgue—and urging the Foggia health authorities to establish a medical facility in Torretta Antonacci for faster emergency response.
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