Calls to bring in Italian army to tackle surge in mafia-linked teenage murders in Naples

‘We’re at war,’ says prosecutor as three ‘foot soldiers’ killed in two weeks, including a 15-year-old

The Italian army should be deployed to Naples to combat a wave of mafia-linked teenage murders, prosecutors said on Monday.
The city has been shocked by a number of killings related to underworld criminality and drug dealing, with most of the victims in their late teens and one aged 15.
Three teenagers have been killed in just two weeks, including a 19-year-old shot reportedly because he had trodden on the designer trainers of a 17-year-old boy.
The victims are reportedly so young because the Camorra, the mafia based in Naples and the surrounding Campania region, recruits teenagers and young men as foot soldiers for its drug turf wars.
Naples was described by one Italian newspaper on Monday as “a Wild West where kids shoot from the back of mopeds and the sheriffs appear impotent”.
Emilia Galante Sorrentino, a prosecutor with the city’s tribunal for juveniles, said: “We’re at war.
“And in situations like this, you need to bring in the army. I say it with a heavy heart, but the city needs to be locked down with the forces of law and order and the army.
“And not just until midnight each night because it is after that time that the city is at the mercy of criminals.”
The prosecutor added: “We have two parallel situations. On the one hand, we have a Camorra 2.0 that arms young men, takes advantage of them, uses them for drug dealing. This is a new way in which the Camorra is operating.
“On the other hand, we have a cultural problem – there is a Camorra mentality which is spreading among young people, a Camorra way of resolving conflicts – even if it is something banal like stepping on a shoe or a girlfriend going off with someone else.”
The latest murder happened at the weekend, when a 19-year-old allegedly shot by his 18-year-old cousin.
The youngest victim of the recent spate of killings was Emanuele Tufano, 15, who was shot dead during a clash between rival gangs.
Officials announced on Monday that they are launching a crackdown on the increasing levels of violence.
Matteo Piantedosi, Italy’s interior minister, said there would be more security around nightlife hotspots and additional CCTV cameras installed.
Maurizio Agricola, the city’s chief of police, said that there were deep-seated social issues behind the violence and that the police needed the help of schools, families and social services to tackle the problem.
“We need to sow a culture of legality among children,” he said. “Unfortunately, it is easy to buy weapons on the dark web.
“If people go around armed, if they start shooting over the slightest thing, it is clear that a mafia mentality has taken root, a Camorra methodology of criminal activity.”
Violence between Camorra clans has often taken place in the past on the outskirts of Naples, in housing estates or satellite towns.
Worryingly for the authorities, many of the most recent murders have taken place in the city’s historic centre – a jumble of narrow alleyways, piazzas and pizzerias which has undergone a tourist boom in recent years.
Maria Luisa Lavarone, an education expert and the author of a book about youth violence in Naples, said the city was in the grip of “an immense emergency” where it had become acceptable for youths “to go out on to the streets carrying a pistol”.