Sunday May 22 at 7.30 p.m. A Cameroonian refugee Emmanuel Bianda was rushed to the hospital in Lindleya Street for an urgent x-ray of his head after being attacked by a racist in KFC Rotunda (Warsaw) as he was about to order food. Bianda was swimming in a sea of his own blood flowing from his nose after a lethal punch from the attacker.
The incident happened in the presence of a packed restaurant, including the security guards of KFC and three Africans; Simon Mol editor of Voice of Exile, Haji Sessay (Sierra Leon) a sociology at the Jagielonian University in Krakow and another Sierra-Leonean refugee living in Warsaw.
The guards (Ochrony) of the place made no attempt to halt the aggressor nor call for police intervention. They stood watching like the rest of the clients in the place, even though the struggle went on for well over 20minutes. When the three Africans made an attempt to halt the brawl, they were punched and kicked by the aggressor. Police officers from the Warsaw -1 police department, on Wilcza Street appeared promptly at the scene after an emergency phone call by Simon Mol. However, the assailant had fled the scene.
According to the victim (E. Bianda), the attacker elbowed him deliberately as he stood in a queue waiting to order food. When he asked why he did that, the attacker pushed and punched him instead of apologizing.
Haji Sessay was coincidentally explaining to the VOICE OF EXILE editor that he has a racial court case on May 27 in Krakow when the above-mentioned incident erupted. According to Sessay, ‘Late last year while chatting with a friend in the streets of Krakow, someone coming from the opposite direction spat on my face! I called the police. Even before their arrival I spotted a Straz Mieszka patrol and reported the incident to them.’ Fortunately for Sessay, the Straz Mieszka were so vigilant that they spotted and arrested the culprit. The greatest problem Sessay faced was convincing the police later that the incident was racially motivated. The police didn’t want to see it from that point of view. They insisted that since no words were said, it wasn’t racially motivated. However following strong arguments, the police finally entered the case as a racial incident and forwarded it to the court.
According to sources, attacks on Africans happen frequently in KFC Rotunda. Sometimes the security guards team up to beat up the victims.
Simon Mol.
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