The fatal migrant stabbing at the Randall’s Island tent city was over a woman, law-enforcement sources said Sunday — while asylum-seekers described life in the shelter as full of armed rivals and divisive “camps.”
The 24-year-old victim was inside the cafeteria tent at the sprawling shelter shortly before 6:30 p.m. Saturday when he got into a beef with a fellow asylum-seeker who had been talking to the man’s girlfriend, sources told The Post.
During the dispute, the victim was assaulted by four people, sources said. One of the suspects, 26, then whipped out a knife and stabbed the victim in the neck and chest area, sources said.
The victim was rushed to Harlem Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Police recovered the knife at the scene and arrested the suspected stabber, while his three accomplices are in the wind, sources said.
Venezuelan immigrant Roger Castillo said of the dead man, “He was a good person, he was a good friend.
“There is not much security, and they are far away,” Castillo said of guards. “It happens so fast.”
Migrants at the makeshift shelter, which was erected last year to house the overflow of migrants flooding into the five boroughs from the US border, have been problematic, some asylum-seekers said.
They said some of the migrants around them have split into “camps” based on their ethnicity and native countries, with Hispanics, Africans and Haitians occasionally at odds, while many are armed with knives and typically petty crimes can be rampant.
“Everyone has a knife,” migrant Mauricio Pinto said.
Moroccan migrant Nabil Jajhlaq added, “There is a lot of stealing.
“If you put your phone down or your charger for a moment, they take it immediately. Any of your stuff that you don’t have they will take.
“There is definitely camps,” he said.
The migrants said tensions are high particularly because there is only one cafeteria facility on the site, which forces members of each camp to rub elbows.
The stabbing incident came hours after a rumble at a migrant intake center in the East Village led to two arrests and a pair of cops getting injured when a man tried to cut into the line of 400 asylum-seekers.
The fight broke out around 8:30 a.m. outside the center on East Seventh Street near Tompkins Square Park in Manhattan, after the culprit allegedly spilled coffee on others while cutting the line, witnesses said.
The cops suffered minor knee and facial injuries in the scuffle.
Additional reporting by Isabel Keane