Concetta Russo was celebrating with her family. There were friends and relatives at his home in Afragola. What then happened will be established by the carabinieri, the fact is that the woman, 55 years old, was reached by a stray gunshot and died shortly afterwards in hospital. Once again, in Naples and in the rest of Italy, the balance of the celebrations for the new year is dramatic. And from Milan to Molfetta, several cities have been vandalized and taken hostage by thugs.
It is a war bulletin from the Department of Public Security. In addition to the victim, 274 people were injured in Italy, including 12 from firearms and 262 from fireworks. There were 49 hospitalized. These figures are up by more than 50 percent compared to last year when 180 people were injured, with 48 hospitalizations. The number of injured minors is also increasing: 64, compared to 50 last year. And the number of seriously injured people is also increasing (more than double), with a prognosis of more than 40 days: 27, compared to 11 last year. As well as the minor injuries which rise from 169 to 242.Overall, the toll of injuries is the worst in the last ten years.
Naples and its province continue to hold the unenviable record for the most serious accidents. Concetta Russo, the woman who was killed, originally from Naples but living in the Milanese area, in Pantigliate, had arrived in Afragola to spend the holidays with her husband and two children. The shot that hit her in the head was fired from inside the apartment, probably by a member of the family. In these hours, the investigators - the carabinieri of Afragola and the Investigative Unit of Castello di Cisterna, coordinated by the Public Prosecutor's Office of North Naples - are collecting the testimonies of those present to understand the manner of the dramatic accident and who was holding the gun which, however, is not found. The carabinieri found a .380 caliber bullet in the house and some investigations showed that none of those present at the party, a dozen relatives plus the victim's husband and children, is in possession of a firearms license. The woman was immediately transported to the Cardarelli hospital and underwent surgery, but died shortly after.
On the other hand, the stray bullet that reached a fifty-year-old woman in the abdomen who was watching the fireworks on the balcony of her home in the Neapolitan district of Forcella came from the street. She was hospitalized in serious condition. And also in Naples, a 50-year-old Algerian was hit in the shoulder by a bullet while walking in the street: reached in the lung, he is in a reserved prognosis.
Despite the intervention of the police forces - who arrested 50 people and reported 304, seized tons of fires, gunpowder and seven guns - the reckless use of the barrels, often illegal, has claimed injuries, with fingers and hands amputated. Even among young people and children, such as an eleven-year-old boy from Alfano, in the Salerno area, who lost sight in one eye due to the explosion of a firecracker, a seventeen-year-old from Foggia who had a hand amputated, as well as a peer in Varese, three minors injured in Grosseto, a fifteen-year-old in Siena and another in Lucca, three very young people aged 6, 10 and 15 were injured while they were setting off a battery of fires in the garden of their home in Terracina. And images of people celebrating the arrival of the new year by shooting firearms on the street or from the balcony are multiplying on social media this year as well. Videos exhibited as real trophies.
But the night was also marked by serious episodes of violence that have nothing to do with the bangs. In Udine, a 31-year-old man, an Italian citizen of Dominican origin, was killed with his throat cut with a knife or a broken bottle, at the end of a New Year's Eve party. And again in Naples, a Russian woman was arrested for trying to kill her partner, a Ukrainian, with a knife to the abdomen at home, at the end of a quarrel.
Finally, in several cities, entire neighborhoods have been taken hostage by gangs of vandals: raids punctually filmed with mobile phones and shared on the web. It happened, among other things, in Milan, where fires were set in the street at San Siro and police vehicles were stoned, and in Molfetta, where thugs overturned a parked car and set off firecrackers in the engine.
New Year's Eve: 3,500 seriously injured and 7 dead from barrels and weapons since 2012 - News - Ansa.it The toll rises. 5 thousand animals die a year (ANSA)
All rights reserved © Copyright ANSA