(ANSA) - Foggia, August 6 - Carabinieri police said Monday that 12 people are dead and three are injured after a road accident on a state highway in the area of Lesina, in the southern province of Foggia. At least some of the victims are migrant farm workers who were travelling in a van on their way back, sources said. Four other migrant workers died in a separate road accident in the southern region at the weekend.

</s>BOLOGNA, Italy - At least two people were killed and 70 injured in a tanker truck explosion near Bologna, Italy.

The explosion happened on a busy highway and caused part of the raised roadway to collapse, CBS News reported.

According to CBS, video showed the tanker rear-ending a vehicle on the highway and causing an explosion. It was then hit by another vehicle from behind.

An unspecified amount of time later, a much larger explosion occurred.</s>A van transporting African migrant workers crashed into an oncoming truck hauling tomatoes on Monday, killing 12 workers. Two men in the front of the van as well as the truck driver were all injured, though not critically. On Saturday, a similar crash occurred in the same area, killing four and injuring four.

The incidents took place near Foggia, in southern Italy's Apulia region — an area renowned for its agricultural industry. Those killed in both crashes were migrant day laborers from Africa who had spent the day picking tomatoes. Tens of thousands of foreign laborers are employed in anti-immigrant Italy's agricultural sector and Apulia's tomatoes are exported around the world. Though some migrant workers come from Poland, Bulgaria and Rumania, most are from Africa.

The workers often earn no more than a few euros a day for their work and live in squalid conditions. Local producers turn to middlemen, known as Caporali, or gangmasters, who are responsible for getting the workers to and from the fields and supervising their work. The middlemen — often members of organized-crime syndicates — decide who works, and pocket a percentage of the migrants' wages. The workers are also charged for transport, food and housing.

As they have no regular contracts, the workers are entirely at the mercy of the Caporali for survival in what many, such as Flavio Di Giacomo of the Italian branch of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), call an exploitative slave system. Di Giacomo decried the situation as such in a tweet Monday.

For years, the IOM and labor unions have been calling for a system of public transportation to avoid crashes like those on Saturday and Monday but to no avail.

On Sunday, African migrant workers announced they would strike on Wednesday. World Federation of Trade Unions (USB) Representative Aboubakar Soumahoro said: "At dawn the workers will march from the countryside to Foggia in order to claim dignified working conditions."

Italian Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio offered his condolences to the victims of Monday's crash. Di Maio is the leader of the populist Five Star Movement (M5S), which governs with the staunchly anti-immigrant Lega (League) party of Matteo Salvini.</s>ROME: Twelve migrant agricultural workers were killed on Monday when the van transporting them during tomato harvest season smashed into a lorry in southern Italy, the Italian fire service said.

All those who died in the crash, which took place near the city of Foggia in Puglia, were non-EU citizens, the fire service told AFP. It added that three other people were injured, one of them the lorry driver. Every summer thousands of migrants from around Europe and Africa work in the area picking tomatoes.

Italian media has reported that the migrants were being taken back to their makeshift homes after their day’s work, when their van slammed head-on into a lorry transporting harvested tomatoes.

It was almost like another crash on Saturday, in which four African farm workers were killed and four others seriously injured also in a collision with a tomato truck. Although most migrants working the fields in Italy have regular papers, they live in squalid conditions and suffer tough working conditions and low pay.

They are often at the mercy of day labourer recruiters sometimes linked to organised crime, who operate as intermediaries to farmers who themselves struggle with large retailers forcing down the price of produce.

For years, unions and associations that help migrant workers have called for a public transport system to be created around Foggia for the peak harvest season. Dozens of African agricultural workers living in one of the area’s shanty towns decided on Sunday to go on strike on Wednesday following Saturday’s accident, representative of the USB union Aboubakar Soumahoro said.</s>MILAN — Italian firefighters say 12 people have been killed and three injured after a van accident in a town in southern Italy.

The ANSA news agency reported that the victims were immigrant farm workers returning from work Monday. The van they were driving hit a truck carrying tomatoes head-on, causing the van to overturn near the town of Foggia.

The nationalities of the victims have not been released.

This was a separate traffic accident from the deadly tanker truck explosion that took place Monday in Bologna, northern Italy, that left at least two people dead and up to 70 injured.</s>ROME: Twelve migrant agricultural workers were killed Monday when the van transporting them during tomato harvest season smashed into a lorry in southern Italy, the Italian fire service said.All those who died in the crash, which took place near the city of Foggia in Puglia, were non-EU citizens, the fire service told AFP.

It added that three other people were injured, one of them the lorry driver. Every summer thousands of migrants from around Europe and Africa work in the area picking tomatoes. Italian media has reported that the migrants were being taken back to their makeshift homes after their day’s work, when their van slammed head-on into a lorry transporting harvested tomatoes. It was almost like another crash on Saturday, in which four African farm workers were killed and four others seriously injured also in a collision with a tomato truck.</s>At least a dozen people, including migrant labourers returning home after spending the day working in the fields, have been killed in a crash between a van and a lorry in southern Italy.

Italian news agency ANSA reported on Monday that the accident took place on a state highway in the area of Lesina in the province of Foggia.

Pictures from the scene showed a white minivan flipped on its roof and lying in the middle of the road following a head-on collision with a truck carrying flour.

Citing police sources, ANSA said 12 people were killed in the crash, adding that at least some of the victims were migrant farm workers who were travelling in the van. Three people, including the truck driver, were injured in the crash.

AFP news agency quoted the fire service as saying that all the victims came from North Africa.

The accident happened two days after four African migrants died in a similar crash in the same region.

Thousands of migrants work in the Italian agriculture sector, harvesting fruit and vegetables.

Although most of them have regular papers, they live in squalid conditions and suffer tough working conditions and low pay.

Local reports said that Fai Cisl, an agricultural trade union, was investigating whether these were avoidable tragedies.

"We want to know if someone is responsible, if the deaths were an avoidable tragedy," the union said on August 4, after the first accident.

"And if the transport was regulated, or if the workers were crammed into the van as still happens, unfortunately, very often," they added.

Flavio Di Giacomo, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, also expressed concern on Monday, writing on Twitter that "in Italy, thousands of migrants work in black labour market, often exploited in the fields".

Separately, at two least people were killed also on Monday when a tanker truck caught fire and on a major highway in Bologna, northern Italy.

Some people were reportedly hit by flying glass as windows shattered in nearby buildings.

"More than 60 people were injured ... some seriously," Deputy Prime Minister Luigi di Maio wrote on Twitter.</s>Ten people, all migrant workers, have died in a collision between their work van and a truck loaded with tomatoes this afternoon in countryside near Foggia, Puglia.

The victims were returning from working in the fields when their van collided “very violently” with the truck, Repubblica reports.

The workers’ van, which had a Bulgarian license plate and was carrying all non-EU passengers, collided head-on with a truck full of tomatoes on a road at the junction for Ripalta, in the countryside of Lesina.

The fatal crash comes just two days after a very similar incident in the same area on Saturday, in which four African agricultural laborers died and another five are in a critical condition in hospital.

Their van also collided with a truck carrying tomatoes on the way back from a work shift in the Capitanata fields.

Every summer thousands of workers, mostly migrants, arrive in the Puglian countryside for the harvest of tomatoes and other crops.

According to the Italian aid group Doctors for Human Rights (Medu), the thousands of migrants come mainly from Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Mali, Uganda, Romania, Bulgaria and Poland. They’re often working for minimal wages and sleeping without electricity or running water in conditions that the NGO describes as “shamefully inhumane".

We want to know if someone is responsible, if the deaths were an avoidable tragedy,” Fai Cisl, an agricultural labourers’ trade union, stated. “And if the transport was regulated, or if the workers were crammed into the van as still happens unfortunately, very often "
• Migrant workers in Calabria protest after woman dies in tent city fire</s>MILAN — A tanker truck carrying a highly flammable gas exploded Monday after rear-ending a stopped truck on a crowded highway near the northern Italian city of Bologna. At least two people were killed, up to 70 injured and part of the raised expressway collapsed in the fireball.

Police said the accident and subsequent fire and explosion left some of the injured with severe burns. It also shut down a highway that is a key route between northern Italy and the Adriatic Coast and other points south, including Florence and Rome, the capital.

A police video showed the tanker failing to slow down quick enough and plowing into the rear of a truck stopped in traffic, with flames exploding on impact. Another truck appeared to hit the tanker from behind. After an unspecified time lapse, during which the highway was cleared of most other vehicles, the truck erupted in a second, enormous explosion that spanned eight lanes of the highway and beyond.

Flames shot up into the air, followed by a thick black cloud of smoke. Aerial photos showed a gaping hole left in the raised highway. TV images hours after the flames were doused showed the burned-out skeletons of hulking tractor trailers.

Italian prosecutors said the tanker was filled with liquefied petroleum gas, otherwise known as propane, used as a fuel in heaters, cooking equipment and vehicles.

Firefighters said the extreme heat of the flames caused the raised roadway to collapse, sending a heat explosion that incinerated dozens of automobiles on new car lots nearby.

In a separate vehicle accident in the southern Italian region of Puglia, 12 farm workers were killed Monday when the van they were traveling in collided with a truck and overturned, ANSA reported.

The accident was similar to one on Saturday, when a truck laden with tomatoes crashed into a van and four migrants died.

Colleen Barry is an Associated Press writer.</s>ROME: Sixteen foreign agricultural workers died in two separate crashes within the space of 48 hours in southern Italy, prompting the government on Monday (Aug 6) to respond to the plight of tomato pickers during harvest season.

Both crashes took place near the city of Foggia in the Puglia region, with 12 people - all non-EU citizens - killed in a crash on Monday, the Italian fire service said.

Italian media reported that the workers were being taken back to their makeshift homes after a day's work when their van slammed head-on into a lorry transporting harvested tomatoes.

On Saturday, four African farm workers were killed and four others seriously injured in another collision with a tomato truck.

Every summer thousands of labourers from around Europe and Africa work in the area picking tomatoes under the blazing sun.

Although most of those working in the fields in Italy have regular papers, rarely do they receive the benefits and salaries required by law and many live in squalid conditions.

They are often at the mercy of day labourer recruiters - sometimes linked to organised crime - who operate as intermediaries and collect a portion of the workers' pay.

Otherwise, the workers are forced to organise themselves independently, coming to wark by bicycle or in dilapidated and overcrowded vehicles.

For years, unions and associations that help migrant workers have called for a public transport system to be created around Foggia for the peak harvest season.

The Puglia region has now budgeted for such a system, governor Michele Emiliano said on Monday, but he added that cooperation and transparency from the farms was crucial.

Farmers in the region are also struggling, with large retailers forcing down the price of produce.

Labour minister Luigi Di Maio, who is also co-deputy prime minster and the leader of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement that governs with the anti-migrant League, promised on Monday to increase the number of inspectors in the region.

He called the current situation "a shameful system that exploits the desperation of people willing to do anything to work".

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said he would travel to Foggia on Tuesday.

Dozens of African agricultural workers living in one of the area's shanty towns decided to go on strike on Wednesday following Saturday's accident, the representative of the USB union, Aboubakar Soumahoro, told AFP.

"At dawn, the farm workers will march from the countryside to Foggia, in order to claim dignified working conditions," he said.

The International Organisation for Migration commented that despite efforts by institutions and civil society to fight against exploitation, "each summer we find ourselves needing to comment on the death of Italian and foreign workers in the agri-food sector".

The archbishop of Foggia, Vincenzo Pelvi, also weighed in on the accidents saying "we must not, we cannot remain indifferent before the tragic deaths of our brothers".

He called for a mass to be held on Monday evening at the cathedral to pray for the 16 victims of the two accidents and for the recovery of the injured.
Twelve migrant workers die and three others are injured when a truck collides with a van in Foggia, Italy.