Ramadan in Italy-Lest We Forget

Cremona, Italy

In Cremona, in northern Italy, a bus driver was going about his daily chores when he heard a commotion in the back of the bus. It seems that two Muslim teenage girls were offended that an Italian girl about the same age was eating a sandwich during Ramadan. They began to hit her and when the driver stopped the bus, they began to assault him too. The below article in La Provincia di Cremona is translated by Fousesquawk.

Cremona: Chaos on a bus

Arguing on aboard, then hit the driver

He tried to calm two girls who slapped a girl (of the same age) over a sandwich. “You can’t eat, it’s Ramadan”.

Cremona- He left emergency care at 7 pm in the evening with the report: “Facial pain at the traumatic site. Five days and unfit for work for two days”. Sending him to the hospital were two 17-year-old girls who were riding on the line G suburban line: Cremona-Spinadesco, round trip, 25 stops. The two youths pushed and attacked the driver (52), employed by Arriva Italia since last August.(In the past he worked for another transportation company.) Pushes, scratches in his face, and broken glasses.

The violence (occurred) at 13:20 today, on Fat Tuesday with the students going home on the bus with some girls and adults.

The injured driver recounted how it happened. “I was driving to Spinadesco when in the back of the bus I heard screams starting. They were screaming loudly. They were girls. I saw from the rear-view mirror. It all started because the two foreign girls went after a young Italian girl who was eating a sandwich. Curse words. ‘Whore…. you can’t eat. It’s Ramadan’ They slapped her.

Some ladies in the rear of the bus began to shout. “Driver! Driver! They are fighting. Stop!” The driver stopped at the stop “where the Caema (energy company) is”. It was 13:20. “When I stopped, I opened all the doors, I got up and began to shout, ‘Get out of the bus, what are you doing?’ And instead. they continued to argue. I saw that at that moment they were slapping the Italian girl. I immediately called the Carabinieri who immediately arrived within a couple of minutes.”

The foreign girls then escaped, “but before escaping, they came at me. I was picked out. I had gotten off. One of the two girls also got off.  I said to the other, ‘You get off too. Get off”. I also started to yell. And when the young girl got off the bus, she pushed me in the stomach. The other one also then began to push me, she broke my glasses, (and) she scratched my face”. There were passengers on the bus. The battered driver continued his route. He drove to Spinadesco and returned to the bus plaza.  It was 2 pm, a colleague substituted for him, and he went to emergency care.

Tomorrow, the driver will file a complaint to the Carabinieri, along with the medical report. “The girl who was slapped also has a big mark on her face. I think she has also filed a complaint..”

7:15 in the evening. The driver has just left the Maggiore Hospital. In emergency care, they also did a CT scan on him, ”because there was swelling under the eye. Now the swelling has gone down a little”. He explains that “such a thing had never happened to me. I have come close, but never like this. It is always them, minors and, sorry to say, but in truth, (non-EU-citizens.)” 

The driver recounts another episode that happened to him about a month and a half ago. “The usual minors were on the bus. Out of nowhere, they were insulting me: ‘Bastard. go away, I will smash your face’. I called the police. The officers arrived, took those boys away, but then, after a while, they came back. If I were a big guy, maybe I could also put the fear in them, and instead?  Instead I am skinny. I weigh 60 kilograms with reinforced shoes, 1.70 m in height.

The driver again asks with a loud voice- safety on the the buses. What happened today is, “the latest episode of violence,” reported by drivers who almost every day are on the barricades. 

Source: http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2025/03/ramadan-in-italy-lest-we-forget.html