Mayor Ignazio Marino on Tuesday
told delegates from Rome's troubled Tor Sapienza neighborhood
that the city will rid "some of its streets" of prostitution.
The mayor spoke after meeting with local citizens from the
predominantly blue-collar and immigrant neighborhood where gangs
of masked residents last week violently attacked a center
housing underage refugees, forcing the city to transfer them.
The incident brought to light long-held grievances in the
run-down neighborhood inhabited by a medley of Italians,
Albanians, Romanians, and Roma people, and which residents say
is plagued with lack of services, poor street lighting, and a
spiking crime rate including several attacks on women.
"We will act in the most rigorous possible way to free some
streets from prostitution, which is causing social tensions,"
the mayor said, adding that city government will not let matters
end here.
"We have decided this...is the beginning of a road we must
travel together," said the center-left mayor, who is from
Premier Matteo Renzi's Democratic Party (PD) and who firmly
condemned last week's racist and xenophobic attack on the
refugees.
"The meeting was productive," Marino said. "We reached
decisions on what needs to be done in the coming hours and
weeks".
Citizen delegates were very specific about which of their
demands they wanted met first.
"The people of Tor Sapienza no longer want the Roma
encampment or the migrant reception center," they said.
"These are the emergencies we need fixed. We will monitor
you every week," they promised.
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