Italians sunbathe as Gypsy girls drown

(CNN) -- Italian newspapers 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 Gypsy 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, aged 14 and 16, had earlier been spotted swimming in the sea with two other Gypsy girls. Reports said they had gone to the beach to beg and sell trinkets.

The four girls soon found themselves in trouble amid fierce waves and strong currents, according to reports. Two of them were pulled to safety but rescuers failed to reach the other two in time to save them. Their bodies were eventually laid out on the sand under beach towels to await collection by police.

For many beach goers however, the incident appears to have been a mere interruption to their day at the seaside.

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. 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 occurred at a time of heightened tensions between Italian authorities and the country's Gypsy 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 Gypsy camps and controversial government plans to fingerprint all Gypsies -- an act condemned by the European Parliament and United Nations officials as a clear act of racial discrimination. Popular resentment against Gypsies has also seen Gypsy 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."

http://edition.cnn.com/20...index.html

Photos from http://www.everyonegroup....aples.html

very sad

God help us.

Measure in Love
"May the voice of the child in you never stop speaking. May it fall like a gift from heaven, offering to dessicated words its splendorous burst of laugher, the salt of its tears, its all powerful wildness." Maurice Blanchot

that is awful. very sad.

So what would be an appropriate response?
The girls were dead. It doesn't say the beachgoers ignored them and let them drown.
As the Goo Goo Dolls intoned, "Don't it make you sad to know that life is more than who you are?"
The world doesn't stop because one of us dies.

Maybe they didn't know those were two deceased people.

And they need to be real over there. "Gypsies" and those that refer to themselves as "Italians" are the same people.
[Edited 7/21/08 14:25pm]

SUPRMAN said:

deebee said:

SUPRMAN said:

So what would be an appropriate response?
The girls were dead. It doesn't say the beachgoers ignored them and let them drown.
As the Goo Goo Dolls intoned, "Don't it make you sad to know that life is more than who you are?"
The world doesn't stop because one of us dies.

True, in some abstract, 'bigger picture' sense. But there's an awful lot that becomes admissible by that logic: the world also doesn't stop because some girl gets raped, because a some people unjustly go to the gas chamber or electric chair, or die of malnutrition, etc - it 'merely' becomes a pretty morally bankrupt and miserable place to live in while it's still spinning. We all learn to develop some emotional 'distance' from people we're not directly connected to (otherwise just watching the news would be a devastating, traumatic experience!), but surely it's also true that we need some compassion, empathy, moral feeling, etc, for the lives of others (the 'little picture'). Being able to act in the world without regard for the lives of others strikes me as being one of the defining characteristics of the psychopath.

Doubtless, if any of us found ourselves in a similar situation - God forbid - we'd 'get over it' after a period of time; but I suppose I like to hang onto the idea that, at least in that moment, my moral imagination would be sufficient that the bodies of two dead children might just put a crimp in my picnic.....

cant say im suprised, each time i visit italy, there is a new game with the gypsies...

last one was "kick the gypsies into the canals" in venice...

mind you, the cops dont look twice...

sad.

Jeez... I have hardly nay faith left in people.

This forum is not good place for a depressed person to hang out.

Sweeny79 said:

12 days until DETROIT bound departure ... and counting

please, it looks from the pictures that everyone was oblivious to what had happened.
And shocked at the realization when the authorities arrived to remove the bodies.
Like that guy talking on the phone is going to knowingly have stroll around dead bodies laying on the beach.

There R a few things which MUST be considered here.

4 one, the Italian media is big on sensationalism. This media agency may be from Roma, or elsewhere in northern Italia, where there is bigotry toward Napolitani, Siciliani, Calabrese, etc.

Secondly, Napoli is a ROUGH place, and it not uncommon to witness (and/or see) death.

Also, people there may have been truly unaware that they were dead.

All that being said... I'm mostly Napolitano myself.

Peace (Paci).

~G

Giovanni777 said: