Van carrying Moroccan farm workers overturns in Foggia, one dead and eight injured

The accident

On the late morning of Sunday 9 August, a van carrying agricultural workers overturned on Provincial Road 45 at Montesecco, in the countryside of Serracapriola in the province of Foggia. The vehicle left the roadway and flipped into a roadside ditch at the margin of the road. No other vehicles were involved; the van was travelling alone. Most sources report nine people on board, with one worker killed on impact and eight injured. Rai News, however, reports ten workers of Moroccan origin on board, with one dead and nine injured. The workers were returning from a day of labour in the fields of neighbouring Molise, a route travelled daily by numerous groups of farm workers commuting from Foggia to the Molise countryside. According to Rai News, the workers had begun their day at dawn and were travelling back during the hottest hours of the afternoon.

Emergency response

Emergency services dispatched multiple 118 ambulances, an air ambulance, firefighters, carabinieri, and local police to the scene. One of the injured workers suffered multiple trauma and was intubated directly at the site by medical personnel before being transferred by helicopter to the Policlinico di Foggia. The remaining injured, with injuries of varying severity, were taken to the hospital in San Severo. The victim had not yet been identified as of the first reports. According to Rai News, the workers lived in an unauthorised encampment between Torremaggiore and San Paolo di Civitate. Inside the van cabin, rescuers found only a straw hat for protection from the summer sun and some worn work shoes.

Possible causes and worker status

Investigators are still examining the circumstances of the crash. Among the hypotheses under consideration is that the driver may have suffered a sudden bout of sleep at the wheel, as reported by Rai News. The carabinieri are conducting investigations to reconstruct the dynamics and understand what happened in the moments immediately preceding the van leaving the road. Rai News states that all the workers were regularly employed. Fanpage notes that while initial reconstructions described the workers as being of Moroccan origin, other sources indicated a different nationality, pending verification through official checks.

Union demands

Cgil and Flai Cgil expressed deep sorrow for the victim and called for answers about the workers' employment conditions. The unions demanded to know who employed the workers and who organised their transport.

“For whom did these agricultural workers work? Did they have a regular contract? Did the company organise the transport or delegate it, and to whom? These are the questions to which we expect answers.”

The unions stated that responsibility falls on the enterprises that use the workforce. The incident has renewed attention on the working and transport conditions of farm workers in the province of Foggia.

Echoes of 2018

The accident recalls the August 2018 tragedies in the Foggia area, when two fatal crashes on 4 and 6 August killed a total of sixteen people. In those cases as well, farm workers were packed into vans after exhausting shifts harvesting tomatoes under the blazing sun, returning to the ghettos of the Foggiano. The two 2018 crashes occurred just two days apart, compounding the toll of what was already one of the most dangerous periods for agricultural labour transport in the region.