The youths are suspected of raping the two girls and filming their crime with their smartphones. The municipality is known in Italy for its mafia activities and juvenile crime.
Caivano, just outside the southern Italian port city of Naples in the Campania region, gained a bad reputation at the end of August. Two girls, aged ten and twelve, were raped by youth gangs. The incidents in the municipality sparked great outrage in Italy. The Mediterranean country’s radical right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visited Caivano and spoke of an “inhuman act” that had shocked the whole of Italy.
According to an initial reconstruction by the researchers, the young people lured the two girls to an abandoned sports center in the infamous Paco Verde district and raped them there. They allegedly filmed their crime with smartphones. According to Italian media, the images of the gang rape were also distributed via a livestream. It now appears that the girls had already been abused by young people in other places in the past.
The municipality of about 35,000 inhabitants is considered a social hotspot and a stronghold of organized crime. The mafia organization Camorra, which is active in the Campania region, has a foothold in the area. After Meloni’s visit, two large-scale raids took place. The right-wing politician announced a tough approach and appointed a special government commissioner to tackle the problems in the municipality.
WATCH ALSO. Woman accuses 4 Belgians of gang rape in Rhodes