A Staten Island man was stabbed in the neck and robbed by two African migrants while vacationing in Italy.
Nick Pellegrino, 29, was riding a train in Milan when two North African men stabbed him in the neck with a five-inch knife as the train stopped at the San Giuliano Milanese station. The attackers then stole his luggage, jewelry, and a gold crucifix from around his neck, leaving him bleeding heavily on the train.
Pellegrino lost roughly a liter and a half of blood and was rushed to a hospital in San Donato Milanese.
“With these very loose, lefty immigration laws, these immigrants come into these countries and they’re running amok, trying to murder people. It’s a playground for terror, for the vicious,” Pellegrino told the New York Post via phone from the hospital.
“It’s f***ing crazy,” he added. “I know America has a big immigration problem, but it is worse here.”
Pellegrino said he was visiting friends and family in Italy when the attack occurred. He recalled looking down at his phone when the train doors opened and the two men rushed at him.
“They looked like the 9/11 hijackers,” Pellegrino said. “I remember looking at the floor in the train and just seeing the blade of the knife, and the most frightening amount of blood I have ever seen.”
After the stabbing, Pellegrino managed to make it onto the platform, where a teenage boy called for help.
“It took the ambulance 15 minutes to get to me,” he said. “A few more minutes, and I was a goner. I could feel, with every heartbeat, another gush of blood coming out.”
Pellegrino said that the Italian authorities have since arrested the two migrants, though their names have not been released. The men are also accused of attacking an elderly man with a glass bottle and stealing a necklace from an older woman.
The incident comes amid a sharp increase in illegal immigration to Italy. In 2023, more than 157,600 illegal immigrants and asylum seekers crossed the Mediterranean Sea into the country. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has repeatedly called for stronger measures to curb the flow of migrants from North African nations.
