After a Guinean resident of a migrant pre-removal facility near Rome took his own life over the weekend, Italian authorities have opened an investigation into suicide incitement and arrested 14 people associated with subsequent riots at the center.
Magistrates in Rome have launched an investigation into a suicide that occurred in the early hours of Sunday (February 4) at a pre-removal center in Ponte Galeria, located near Rome.
The process will begin with an autopsy of the body of the deceased 22-year-old resident of the facility. He had been transferred to Rome a few days before his death from a different migrant hosting center in Trapani, Sicily.
Investigators will examine videos from surveillance cameras inside the center and messages left by the young man on a wall of the facility.
The young migrant was already dead when health personnel intervened.
Read more: Riot at Rome CPR after migrant's suicide
'Centers cause desperation and must be closed'
Members of the center-left opposition called for such centers to be closed following the incident.
The Democratic Party (PD), Più Europa (More Europe) and the Green Left (AVS) said the "detention system is collapsing" with a "growing number of suicides".
CPRs are "places of affliction that don't help increasing the number of repatriations" and "must be closed", they said.
Meanwhile, another investigation is ongoing into a riot staged by residents at the CPR following the suicide, which led to the arrest of 14 people on charges of resisting and harming public officials, property damage and arson.
The suspects are of Moroccan, Pakistani, Guinean, Cuban, Chilean, Senegalese, Tunisian, Nigerian and Gambian descent, investigative sources said. Six of them hailed from the center in Trapani.
Security officials who intervened have sent an initial report on the violence at the CPR to the Rome-based prosecutors investigating the case.
Read more: Three migrants arrested after Sicily detention center fires
Over a dozen arrests in Rome after riot
The riot began at 9:30 a.m. on Sunday (February 4), when some residents of the center started setting mattresses on fire.
After a brief period of calm, a group of migrants attempted to break through a wall in the facility and started throwing objects at security forces around 1 pm.
After about an hour, some guests forced open a security door and were able to access an area where police cars were parked and attempted to set one on fire.
At the same time, other people forced a few doors open and entered a room used by Carabinieri police, stealing a few personal items and damaging the room.
Officers used tear gas to restore calm and prevented a few residents from fleeing, with the help of the center's personnel and a flying squad.
Security officials managed to regain full control of the facility at 10 p.m. on Sunday.
Three officers were wounded in the violence, including an army corporal who suffered a tendon rupture.
The facility was severely damaged: two walls were torn down, security doors' locks were destroyed and eight surveillance cameras were broken.