ITALIAN communists have demanded urgent answers after airport cargo workers in Pisa blocked a shipment of weapons bound for Ukraine under the guise of humanitarian aid.

Communist Refoundation Party national secretary Maurizio Acerbo called for the Italian Ministry of Defence to explain why boxes bound for Kiev contained weapons, ammunition and explosives instead of much-needed food and medicines for the Ukrainian people.

Airport workers refused to load the deadly cargo which they said was set to be transported to US and Nato bases in Poland before being shipped to Ukraine.

Mr Acerbo said: “Citizens have the right to know what kind of military operations their country is conducting, especially when a city lends its airports, becoming a direct protagonist of the conflict on the one hand and a potential target on the other.”

“The Pisa episode is very serious, and bitterly confirms our concerns,” Mr Acerbo said, stating that an official parliamentary question over the affair was to be tabled.

The USB Pisa union condemned the actions as fraudulent and called for these type of flights to be banned. 

“We strongly denounce this real falsification, which cynically uses the ‘humanitarian’ cover to continue fuelling the war in Ukraine,” it said.

The union encouraged workers to continue their strike over loading arms shipments and urged them to join a protest calling for peace at Galilei airport tomorrow.

Italian workers have a strong tradition of refusing to load munitions. 

In May 2019 dockers in Genoa stopped the Saudi ship Bahri Yanubu from loading with drones and other equipment that would be used in its devastating war on Yemen.