DAR AL HARB - ITALY: MULTI-NATIONAL POLICE FORCE

MULTI-ETHNIC FORCE TO PATROL PADUA'S IMMIGRATION ENCLAVES

Padua, 25 May (AKI) - The northeastern Italian city of Padua which made headlines last summer after the left-leaning local government took the drastic decision to seal off with a metal wall an immigrants' estate with a high crime rate, is set to deploy a group of immigrants to patrol trouble spots, the local administration said Friday. The 18-strong corps selected among 250 candidates will include a 27-year-old Moroccan, Malika Machkour, a chemistry university student and a practicing Muslim who wears the veil, as well as a Chinese violin player with the Padua Orchestra, Song Yang, 24. Patrols are scheduled to begin next week.

The one-year-long experimental project is innovative in Italy and its objective is to boost the integration of immigrants and improve relations between foreigners and local citizens, said Maria Luisa Ferretti, a deputy city police chief.

"The 'cultural mediators' will help immigrants relate in a positive way with local police forces and help their lives along with that of locals," Ferretti told Adnkronos International (AKI). The 18 will wear a special uniform when they patrol the city, which they will do on a daily basis. "The main thing is is that they talk to people, help them out of difficult situations," Feretti said.

Padua has a population of 205,000 and the province has a migrant population of 70,000. According to the local authority, one in three of all new-borns in the city is of foreign origin.

There are racial tensions in the northern city and fights between Christian and Muslim gangs are common, most of it is over drugs. The riots last July that led to the construction of the controversial wall around the estate in via Anelli were so bad that some local residents called for the 85-metres-long and 3-metres-high metal wall to be further extended to limit the drug-dealing.

Ferretti said Friday that most of the immigrants illegally residing in the via Anelli estate have been relocated and that the drug-dealing is under control though she aknowledged that the area would be significantly patrolled by the 'mediators' along with other trouble spots.

She said the 18 had been selected among the seven major immigrant groups in Padua - French and English speaking Africans, Arabs, Chinese, Tamil and Hindi speakers and central Europeans - and that each mediator would patrol areas inhabitated by her or his ethnic group.

The approach among mediators will however not necessarily be the same.

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