“They ran into the square and screamed for help, they were human torches.” It is the chilling story of the neighbors of the Zaouali family, Tunisians living in Vittoria (Ragusa) for years, destroyed on Thursday night by their 30-year-old son, Ouajdi, who suffered from mental problems. The man set fire to the house, killing his mother and older sister, while his father and younger sister are hospitalized in serious conditions. “They were unrecognizable,” reports La Sicilia, reporting the testimonies of the tragedy that erupted at the height of a family quarrel. The fire, started by the 30-year-old using a torch with a rag soaked in flammable liquid, broke out around 2.30am on Thursday in the modest home near the former Trinity church, which gives its name to the neighborhood.
The night of the tragedy is described with horror by the neighbors. “They ran in the square and were unrecognizable,” says a woman to La Sicilia. “They were human torches screaming and calling for help. He (the 30-year-old arsonist) was chasing the sisters. Some people took to the streets with blankets to wrap their bodies and put out the flames. Young Tunisians bravely entered the house amidst the flames and pulled out her mother, Mariem Sassi, 55, now unrecognizable, and placed her on the ground. Help arrived almost immediately. But none of them were spared from the flames.”
The memory of the Tunisian family, well integrated into Vittoria, is moving. “They were special, serene, calm people,” say other neighbors in La Sicilia, woken up in the middle of the night. “Everyone respected them, their daughters had studied with excellent results. One of the sisters was attending university, the other was preparing for her high school diploma. However, we knew there were problems: the son had had difficult years. As a child he was like the others, lively and smiling. Then something changed. Sometimes he was under house arrest. He often shouted and mistreated his family, he was violent. They had reported him several times, but he was of no use.”
The victims of Vittoria’s family tragedy are her mother Mariem55 years old, who died after hospitalization due to burns on 90% of her body, and her eldest daughter, Sessame Zaouali, 33 years old, university student and worker, died in the evening at the Cannizzaro burns center in Catania. THEFather Kamel Zaouai57 years old, worker on a farm, and younger daughter Oumaima, 19 years old, graduating from the Mazzini linguistic high school in Vittoria, are in very serious conditions. Kamel is hospitalized in intensive care at the Civic hospital in Palermo with burns on 40% of his body; her daughter is in even more critical conditions at the Cannizzaro hospital in Catania.
The person responsible for the tragedy, his thirty-year-old son with mental problems, was stopped by the police at the bus station while he was trying to escape. He is accused of multiple murder and attempted murder. From what has emerged, it seems that he had been suffering from psychiatric problems for some time and that in the past he had already gone into a rage, requiring the intervention of the 118 health workers to calm him down.
According to an initial reconstruction, the son, who was on probation, doused the parents’ bedroom, the corridor and the entrance to the house with petrol, starting the fire with a lighter. He also threw petrol on his family members before starting the flames.
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