Travelers in Cebu province crowd the bed of a truck along the SRP in Talisay City in this file photo taken in December 2015. In Italy, an Afghan stowaway traveled 400 kilometers from Greece to Italy tied to the underchassis of a truck. CDN PHOTO/LITO TECSON
ROME, Italy — An Afghan migrant traveled 400 kilometers (250 miles) along an Italian highway strapped by leather belts to the bottom of a truck, police said Tuesday.
The young man was arrested after other motorists on the Naples-Rome stretch of the A1 motorway caught sight of him suspended from his makeshift harness and alerted police.
The Bulgarian drivers of the truck, who were on a trip from Turkey to Spain, said they had been unaware of the stowaway and were allowed to continue their journey.
In an interview with Sky TG24, the Afghan man said he had paid 900 euros ($1,017) to a trafficker who attached him to the truck on a ferry from Greece, where he had spent six months in a migrant camp, to the Italian port of Brindisi.
He said his 22 hours under the truck were tough but not unbearable. “I have been through much more dangerous things in Afghanistan than this journey,” he said.
The exhausted Afghan was briefly hospitalized before being released to a migrant reception center. He was ordered to leave Italy within seven days after indicating he did not want to register an asylum request in the country.
More than 100,000 migrants have arrived in Italy since the start of the year. Many of them try to avoid registering there in the hope of being able to deposit asylum requests in northern Europe.
Aid workers said they were hopeful that the Afghan stowaway would change his mind and register an asylum request in Italy. He told Sky TG24 he wanted to get to France to meet friends and that his mother and brothers were living in Switzerland.