Italian Daisy Osakue, 22, was the target of an attack when she returned to her home in the early hours of Monday (30)
A black Italian discus athlete, Daisy Osakue, aged 22, was the target of an attack in the early hours of Monday (30), while returning home to Moncalieri, in the metropolitan region of Turin.
Osakue, who is the daughter of Nigerian parents but was born and raised in Italy, was hit in the eye by an egg thrown from a moving car and had to be taken to an ophthalmology hospital. “Luckily, it was just a bruise. A few days of rest, some eye drops and I should be fine,” said the athlete.
The police have not yet confirmed the racist motivation for the attack, but Osakue has no doubt that she was attacked because she was black.
“They did it on purpose. They didn't want to target me as Daisy, but as a black girl. I had already suffered episodes of racism, but only verbally. When action is taken, it means that another barrier has been overcome,” she said.
According to investigators, other episodes of egg throwing in the same region had already been reported in recent days. “The attack on the Azzurri athlete Daisy Osakue is an unworthy act that we firmly condemn, whoever did it should feel shame before the entire country”, says a note from the 5 Star Movement (M5S), the largest party in the base allied with Prime Minister Giuseppe Count.
Osakue is seen as a promise in Italian athletics and already has the fourth best record in the country's history in the discus throw, with 59,72 meters. Between August 6th and 12th, she will participate in the European Championships in Berlin, Germany.
The young woman trains in the United States, after being invited by the coach of a university in Texas. Her father was a judoka, while her mother played handball.
Attack against the black athlete is not the only one
Italy has experienced recurring cases of aggression against minorities, from immigrants and refugees to gypsies. Last Thursday (26), a 33-year-old man from Cape Verde who works as a laborer in Vicenza was shot with a compressed air gun while he was on scaffolding seven meters high.
Athlete stated that he suffered a racist attack. Photo: Reproduction / Twitter
In Caserta, an asylum seeker was hit in the face, also by an air pistol. Both are doing well. A 13-month-old Roma girl, however, was not so lucky: she was hit by a shot from an air rifle fired by a retiree from the balcony of his apartment in Rome. The child is not in danger of dying, but may become paraplegic.
The case made the president of Italy, Sergio Mattarella, go public to say that the country is turning into a “wild west”.
In addition to the attack against the black athlete, on Saturday (28), a 19-year-old Senegalese asylum seeker was beaten while working in a bar in the province of Palermo and called a “dirty black man”.
News originally published in Sport – iG
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