Update: The driver, a 47-year-old father of two whose ex-wife is Italian, has been charged with carnage and kidnapping of 51 students, according to the Daily Mail.

According to a police commander, the driver, Ousseynou Sy, threatened the passengers – “telling them that ‘no one would survive today.” as he commandeered the bus carrying two middle-school classes in Cremona province around 25 miles from Milan.”

Ousseynou Sy, originally Senegalese but with Italian citizenship, stopped the bus he was driving, with two classes of high school students on board. He was said to have ordered the children’s hands to be bound and threatened to kill them and himself during the drive, before setting the vehicle on fire when he was stopped by a police blockade today. Officers broke the glass in the back door of the bus and got all the passengers to safety without serious injury before the flames destroyed the vehicle, authorities said. As he was apprehended, the driver said he was protesting migrant deaths in the Mediterranean, Commander Luca De Marchis told Sky TG24. –Daily Mail

An adult was able to make an emergency call, while one of the students called a parent who alerted authorities.

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A bus full of school children in Italy was set on fire by its driver in the outskirts of Milan on Wednesday in protest of migrants who have drowned due to the country’s hardline stance on blocking migrant vessels, according to Reuters.

Video appears to show African migrants hijacking a schoolbus in Italy as children flee screaming. The bus was set on fire after pic.twitter.com/PJyPASHJFK — Jack Posobiec ✝️ (@JackPosobiec) March 20, 2019