(supersedes)A 20-year-old man
was burned to death last night in a fire that swept through a
shanty town housing Bulgarian day laborers 20km from the Puglia
city of Foggia.
Eyewitnesses told police and reporters that two fellow
Bulgarians began arguing while intoxicated by alcohol when one
of the two set fire to his own shanty, for unknown reasons.
The fire spread to a nearby hut, where the victim succumbed
to the flames in his sleep.
The blaze destroyed a total of 20 makeshift shelters patched
together with cardboard, metal and plastic sheeting.
The shanty town houses approximately 300 Bulgarians, 100 of
them children. The adults pick fruits and vegetables on area
farms.
It was the second fire in shanty towns near Foggia in a few
days, after another one in the sp-called Great Ghetto that
destroyed some 100 huts housing African farm workers, leaving
one man bruised and another overcome by fumes. A stove
malfunction was behind that blaze.
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