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HER CRIME? SHE IS BLACK! Italian-born Nigerian athlete, Daisy Osakue, attacked with egg in Italy, suffers eye injury

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An Italian-born Nigerian athlete, Daisy Osakue, was wounded in the eye after she had an egg thrown at her in what authorities have said maybe a racists attack.

Osakue, who was born in Italy to Nigerian immigrant parents, was expected to represent the country of her birth in the European Athletics Championships next week.

The Monday attack brings to nine such attacks since Italy’s anti-migrant government took power.

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Asylum-seekers, legal immigrants and others who aren’t ethnic Italians are among the people injured since early June. They include a 13-month-old Roma girl who was shot while she was in her mother’s arms on a Rome street and left partially paralyzed.

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Emerging from a clinic with a bandage over her left eye, Osakue said she thinks she was mistaken for one of the African prostitutes who often work the street on the outskirts of Turin she was crossing.

The athlete, who is also a sprinter and hurdler, said she saw a car speeding toward her while she was in a crosswalk and dashed to the sidewalk to avoid the vehicle. She recalled feeling something strike her eye and falling forward.

Osakue, who holds the Italian under-23 record for the discus and was born in Turin to Nigerian parents, was hit in the face by an egg hurled from a car at Moncalieri. She was taken with Turin’s Oftalmico eye hospital with an injured cornea.

“They did it on purpose,” Osakue said.

“They didn’t want to hit me, as Daisy, they wanted to hit me as a young woman of colour.

“There are several prostitutes in that area and they will have mistook me for one of them.

“I have been the victim of episodes of racism before, but only verbal ones. “When you go from words to action if means another wall has been breached”.

At first it was feared the eye injury Osakue suffered could put her participation in the European championships at risk.

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But the 22-year-old said she should be OK.

“Luckily it’s only an abrasion,” she said. “With a few days rest and some drops I should be all right”.

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She said,

“I’m sorry to say it, but I think we’re dealing with racism,” Osakue, who currently trains and studies criminal justice in the U.S. state of Texas, told Italian TV.

Her ability to compete in the track-and-field championships is uncertain because eggshell fragments injured her cornea. Police were investigating to determine if it was a racially motivated attack.

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