It took firefighters around three hours to put out the fire that broke out during the night inside the Beccaria juvenile prison in Milan. The flames apparently started from a cell on the second floor, with the smoke involving three other nearby cells. There were no people injured, while the causes are still to be clarified. The fire broke out around 2 am, when some of the inmates were removed from the facility for safety reasons. Four fire brigade teams intervened and only managed to put out the fire at five o’clock.
The fire occurred on the night before the arrival of the new director of the institute, Daniele Alborghetti. The installation scheduled for today 6 May is accompanied by the arrival of 47 new penitentiary police officers, of which 25 transferred from the External Criminal Enforcement Office of Lombardy and another 22 from the Dap. The reinforcements arrive in the institution which for days has been at the center of investigations into the abuse and violence against inmates which led to the arrests of prison police officers. Having been understaffed for some time, the institute had also ended up at the center of controversy at Christmas 2022, when a daring escape took place during which seven young inmates escaped, gradually captured and returned in the following days.
