Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was yesterday to visit people wounded by a driver with a history of mental health problems who ran over pedestrians in a city center in northern Italy.
The driver hit several people before crashing into a shop window, colliding head-on with a woman.
Eight people were wounded in the incident in Modena, four of them seriously, including a woman who had to have both legs amputated.
Photo: EPA
Meloni canceled a planned visit to Cyprus to go to Modena, a government source said.
Italian President Sergio Mattarella would also travel to the northern Italian city, the source said.
Security camera footage broadcast by Italian media showed a car being driven at high speed into a city center street packed with pedestrians and cyclists.
The suspect tried to flee the scene, but was chased and cornered by four passers-by, then pulled a knife and injured one of them.
The driver, an economics graduate born in 1995 who was not known to the police, went through a spell of “psychological disturbance” in 2022, city prefect Fabrizia Triolo said at a news conference on Saturday.
“He had been treated at a mental health center for schizoid disorders, but we lost track of him after that initial period of observation in a care facility,” she added.
The driver was not under the influence of “psychotropic substances,” Triolo said.
His home near Modena has been searched.
Meloni wrote on X that the incident was “extremely serious.”
“I would also like to express my thanks to the citizens who courageously intervened to detain the perpetrator, as well as to the law enforcement officers for their response,” she added.
His head bleeding, Luca Signorelli, one of the passers-by who intervened, told Italian TV channels that he “heard impacts and saw people being run over.”
“The car came at me and I managed to throw myself to the ground,” Signorelli added.
“The car was smoking, I opened the door, and he got away; four or five of us ran after him... He pulled out a knife, hit me in the head, and gave another blow to my heart that I managed to avoid,” he said.
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