TORREGAVETA, Italy (July 21) - Italian newspapers, an archbishop and civil liberties campaigners expressed shock and revulsion on Monday after photographs
were published of sunbathers apparently enjoying a day at the beach just meters from where the bodies of two drowned Roma girls were laid out on the sand.
Italian news agency ANSA reported that the incident had occurred on Saturday at the beach of Torregaveta, west of Naples, southern Italy, where the two
girls had earlier been swimming in the sea with two other Roma girls. Reports said they had gone to the beach to beg and sell trinkets.
Giacominfoto / Fotogramma
Italians are expressing outrage over published photos that show beachgoers near Naples going about their day as the bodies of two Roma girls lay on the shore. The girls had drowned earlier in the day, but the tragedy draws attention to what one group calls Italy's atmosphere of "racism" toward Gypsies.
Local news reports said the four girls found themselves in trouble amid fierce waves and strong currents. Emergency services responded 10 minutes after a
distress call was made from the beach and two lifeguards attended to the girls upon hearing their screams.
Two of them were pulled to safety but rescuers failed to reach the other two in time to save them.
The Web site of the Archbishop of Naples said the girls were cousins named Violetta and Cristina, aged 12 and 13.
Their bodies were eventually laid out on the sand under beach towels to await collection by police. Photographs show sunbathers in bikinis and swimming trunks sitting close to where the girls' feet can be seen poking out from under the towels concealing their bodies. A photographer who took photos at the scene told CNN the mood among sunbathers had been one of indifference.
Other photos show police officers lifting the bodies into coffins and carrying them away past bathers reclined on sun loungers.
"While the lifeless bodies of the girls were still on the sand, there were those who carried on sunbathing or having lunch just a few meters
away," Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported.
Corriere della Sera said that a crowd of curious onlookers that had formed around the bodies quickly dispersed.
"Few left the beach or abandoned their sunbathing. When the police from the mortuary arrived an hour later with coffins, the two girls were carried
away between bathers stretched out in the sun."
The incident also attracted condemnation from the Archbishop of Naples, Cardinal Crecenzio Seppe. "Indifference is not an emotion for human
beings," Seppe wrote in his parish blog. "To turn the other way or to mind your own business can sometimes be more devastating than the events
that occur."
Recent weeks have seen heightened tensions between Italian authorities and the country's Roma minority amid a crackdown by Silvo Berlusconi's
government targeting illegal immigrants and talk by government officials of a "Roma emergency" that has seen the 150,000-strong migrant group
blamed for rising street crime.
That has provided justification for police raids on Roma camps and controversial government plans to fingerprint all Roma -- an act condemned by the
European Parliament and United Nations officials as a clear act of racial discrimination. Popular resentment against Romanies has also seen Roma camps near
Naples attacked and set on fire with petrol bombs by local residents.
In a statement published on its Web site, the Italian civil liberties group EveryOne said Saturday's drowning had occurred in an atmosphere of
"racism and horror" and cast doubt on the reported version of events, suggesting that it appeared unusual for the four girls to wade into the
sea, apparently casting modesty aside and despite being unable to swim.
"The most shocking aspect of all this is the attitude of the people on the beach," the statement said. "No one appears the slightest upset
at the sight and presence of the children's dead bodies on the beach: they carry on swimming, sunbathing, sipping soft drinks and chatting."
How can those people just sit there like that?
How can those people just sit there like that?
:::Makeup
Lover:::
omg i can't believe @ this pic
I'm shocked
