Once the bus stopped, the driver jumped off and set it alight, having already doused it in petrol. Police were able to smash the rear windows and get passengers off before the vehicle was engulfed in flames.<doc-sep>(CNN) 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. Read More<doc-sep>A Senegalese native angry about Italy's migrant policy hijacked a bus with 51 children and their chaperones aboard Wednesday and took them on an hour-long drive before setting the vehicle ablaze, officials said. The driver, who is a citizen of Italy, allegedly said he wanted to kill himself and “stop the deaths in the Mediterranean,” ANSA reported. "He wanted to get to the runway at [Milan's airport],” a girl told ANSA. "He handcuffed us and threatened us. He said that if we moved he would pour out the petrol and light the fire.” “[The driver] kept saying that people in Africa are dying and the fault is [deputy prime ministers Luigi] Di Maio and [Matteo] Salvini,” she added. FRANCE TO DEPLOY TROOPS TO MAINTAIN SECURITY DURING PROTESTS The man, reportedly in his 40s, took the bus carrying two middle-school classes in Cremona province, about 25 miles from Milan, and drove for an hour before authorities intercepted the vehicle using three Carabinieri vehicles. Authorities were able to set up a roadblock based on information from an adult and a student who called a parent. "While two officers kept the driver busy — he took a lighter and threatened to set fire to the vehicle with a gasoline canister on board — the others forced open the back door," Commander Luca De Marchis told Sky24TV. The driver started the blaze as officers broke the glass in the back door of the bus, allowing the passengers to escape before flames engulfed the entire vehicle. Video of the incident’s aftermath showed a charred metal frame. INDIAN DIAMOND TYCOON ARRESTED IN LONDON OVER ALLEGED ROLE IN $2 BILLION BANKING SCANDAL Some passengers were taken to the hospital for cuts and scratches. The driver, who lived in Cremona and is married with two children, was being treated for burns. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP The driver had worked for the bus company for 15 years without any employment-related issues, Sky TV24 reported. De Marchis said he had previous convictions, but he did not specify their nature other than to say they were not serious crimes. The Associated Press contributed to this report.<doc-sep>He then gave zip ties to the three adults, ordering them to tie each child’s wrists together as he drove. As they went back the rows of seats, the adults left the zip ties progressively looser, another prosecutor, Francesco Greco, said. Police in two carabinieri cars, tipped off by the phone call, forced the bus to stop on the Paullese provincial highway, but Mr. Sy rammed the cars again and again. While some officers tried to speak to him, others from a third military police car forced the bus’s side door open and broke the windows at the back to allow the passengers to flee. At that point, Mr. Sy apparently ignited a lighter he was holding, officers said, and the bus caught fire as the hostages were escaping. Italian television stations showed images of the charred skeleton of the bus, completely destroyed. Asked why the adults did not try to overpower the driver, Warrant Officer Palmieri said that he could not speak for them, but that “the threat was very real.” Mr. Sy was born in Senegal in 1972, investigators said, and became an Italian citizen in 2004. His wife, from whom he is separated, is Italian, and the couple have two children. Mr. Sy had been working for the Autoguidovie bus company for 15 years, a company official, Corrado Bianchessi, said. He “never gave any particular signal” to indicate what he had planned, Mr. Bianchessi told the Italian channel of Sky News. “We are amazed,” he said. Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, who is also Italy’s interior minister and a major opponent of illegal immigration, posted a tweet in which he said that Mr. Sy had a police record for driving under the influence and sexual assault.<doc-sep>
MILAN (Reuters) - A bus full of schoolchildren was hijacked and set on fire by its own driver on Wednesday in an apparent protest against migrant drownings in the Mediterranean, Italian authorities said. Slideshow ( 2 images ) All 51 children managed to escape unhurt before the bus was engulfed in flames on the outskirts of Milan, Italy’s business capital. Police named the driver as Ousseynou Sy, a 47-year-old Italian citizen of Senegalese origin. “He shouted, ‘Stop the deaths at sea, I’ll carry out a massacre’,” police spokesman Marco Palmieri quoted Sy as telling police after his arrest. A video posted on Italian news sites showed the driver ramming the bus into cars on a provincial highway before the fire took hold. Children can be seen running away from the vehicle screaming and shouting “escape”. One of the children told reporters that the driver had threatened to pour petrol over them and set them alight. One of group managed to call the police, who rushed to the scene and broke the bus windows to get everyone to safety. Palmieri said some children were taken to hospital as a precautionary measure because they had bruises or were in a state of shock, but none suffered serious injuries. A teacher who was with the middle school children was quoted by Ansa news agency as saying that the driver had said he wanted to get to the runway at Milan’s Linate airport. An unnamed girl was also quoted as saying that Sy blamed deputy prime ministers Matteo Salvini and Luigi Di Maio for the deaths of African migrants at sea. The United Nations estimates that some 2,297 migrants drowned or went missing in the Mediterranean in 2018 as they tried to reach Europe. A Libyan security official said on Tuesday that at least 10 migrants died when their boat sank off the Libyan coast near the western town of Sabratha. The Italian government has closed its ports to charity rescue ships that pick up migrants off the Libyan coast. Salvini says this has helped reduce deaths because far fewer people are now putting to sea. Human rights groups say deaths might have increased with hardly any boats now searching for the would-be refugees.