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Police operation in Italy: "What happened hurts our conscience"
Photo: Matteo Nardone / imago images / Pacific Press Agency
By chance, the police in Prestino, northern Italy, came across the body of a 70-year-old woman who had apparently died more than two years ago.
As the newspaper "Corriere dela Serra" writes, the woman had sold her house to a Swiss man a few years earlier, but retained her lifelong right of residence.
The new owner was rarely on site and only became suspicious after being informed about fallen trees on the property.
He then alerted the police, who eventually discovered the body.
According to the report, the woman was last seen by neighbors in September 2019.
They assumed she had moved away at the start of the coronavirus pandemic that hit northern Italy in early 2020.
Apparently the woman had no living relatives.
Nothing indicates an unnatural death.
»The forgotten loneliness hurts our conscience«
The find caused consternation in Italy.
Family Minister Elena Bonetti wrote on Facebook: »What happened in Como, the forgotten loneliness, hurts our conscience.
We have a duty, as a community that wants to remain united, to remember their lives.” No one should be left alone.
The deceased was "loneliness personified," said a commentary in the Corriere della Sera.
»Many of us still have memories of the chaotic, branching families of rural Italy.« Instead, people today die alone.
"And we live alone, which is almost worse."
Sol