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A young woman was brutally assaulted by a stranger on a regional train between Carnate-Usmate and Arcore in Lombardy on Monday evening and called for her attacker’s deportation in a television interview.
The victim, identified as Stephanie, described the ordeal as “endless minutes of physical and verbal aggression,” saying she was only able to escape thanks to the use of pepper spray.
“He attacked me out of nowhere, saying he would kill me,” she said. “The only thing that saved my life was my pepper spray, because people just watched without trying to help me.”
According to her account on the Mediaset program Mattino Cinque, as cited by Virgilio, the assault began when the man, a complete stranger of African origin, started staring at her and threw a bottle of water before launching into insults. “He told me to be quiet, but I wasn’t speaking. I replied, ‘I don’t have to be quiet, you have to be quiet,’ and I got up to leave,” she said. “He got angry, came at me, grabbed me by the neck. I already had the pepper spray in my hand and sprayed it. He got even angrier and came to punch me. I fell, and he started kicking me while I was on the ground. I thought it was the end of me.”
The victim recorded the incident after she had initially pepper-sprayed the man, which Remix News has translated and published.
🇮🇹❕ "Why? Tell me why!"
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) November 6, 2025
A young woman confronts an African migrant who randomly attacked her on a train in Italy, prompting her to use pepper spray against him in self-defense.
The attacker then comes back for more.
After the attack on Monday, the victim posted images of her… pic.twitter.com/z1nmK6Szyn
“Why? Tell me why!” she asks the man in the footage. Her attacker complains that the pepper spray is strong, and she notes that she can feel it too, but that it is necessary for women like her to carry it in order to protect herself from men like him.
He can then be seen lunging at her again as she screams.
Stephanie said that despite being surrounded by passengers, no one intervened. “No one did anything. They just watched,” she said. “Every day, being a woman alone in a country that’s becoming more and more dangerous, it becomes almost impossible to survive.”
FS Security and Trenord Security staff eventually recognized the suspect and handed him over to the railway police, who briefly detained him. However, he was later released, prompting widespread outrage after another woman came forward to say she had repeatedly reported the same man for stalking and threats.
“I’ve known him by sight for years because we live in the same village,” said Ilaria, another alleged victim. “For a year, I’ve been subjected to stalking and death threats. Even though I report him, he keeps showing up at my house. He even threatened my grandmother with a tool. It seems absurd to me that he’s still free.”
Regional League leader Alessandro Corbetta expressed solidarity with Stephanie and demanded stronger measures to protect commuters. “This episode demonstrates how urgent it is to increase the presence of FS operators and Trenord Security on trains and in Lombardy stations,” he said. Corbetta also called for the suspect to be expelled from Italy.
The incident comes amid a growing wave of violent attacks on Italy’s public transport network, many involving foreign nationals.
In July, a 27-year-old American tourist was stabbed in the chest and neck on a regional train from Melegnano to Milan by a group of men described as of North African origin. The attackers reportedly tried to snatch his gold chain before fleeing. The victim survived after being treated at Melegnano Hospital. Authorities confirmed the assault was one of more than 260 violent incidents recorded on Italy’s railways in 2025 — an average of more than one per day. Of the 113 cases where arrests were made, 122 suspects were foreign nationals, compared to 32 Italians.
In March, a violent altercation broke out on a Cremona public bus when two foreign teenage girls attacked an Italian passenger for eating a sandwich during Ramadan. The 52-year-old bus driver who intervened was also beaten, suffering facial injuries and broken glasses. Police arrived after the attackers fled, and local unions later demanded better protection for public transport workers.
In August, police in Novara investigated the rape of a 20-year-old woman commuting alone on a Trenord train from Trecate to Novara. The suspect, described as a North African man around 25 years old, allegedly assaulted her just minutes before arrival at Novara station. “I tried to call for help, but no one heard me,” the victim told investigators. She went directly to the railway police to file a report.
And in November last year, a 44-year-old train conductor was stabbed twice on a regional service between Genoa Brignole and Busalla by two men of North African origin after confronting them for not having tickets. The attack sparked a nationwide strike by railway unions, who condemned the “violent and repeated assaults” faced by staff. “The gravity and intolerability of these episodes urgently require firm and decisive intervention,” unions said in a joint statement.
With hundreds of violent incidents reported each year, calls are mounting for stronger security measures and stricter enforcement on Italy’s public transport network. “Boarding a train today could mean risking your life,” warned Corbetta. “This is no longer unsafe — it’s an emergency.”
