The Italian embassy in London on
Wednesday branded the Sun's report that Naples was among the
world's 10 most dangerous cities as "fake news".
"#Naples is not included in any official index of the 50 most
dangerous #cities in the world," the embassy said.
"The Sun must have had a sun stroke...confusing fiction with
reality when it listed the city by Mt Vesuvius along with the
likes of Raqqa, Mogadishu and Grozny".
The British tabloid sparked Neapolitan indignation Tuesday
when it rated the Camorra mafia-hit Campania capital the most
dangerous city in western Europe, alongside other global
"hellholes" including Perth in Australia and St Louis in the
United States.
The poll rated terror, drugs, murders, the presence of mafia
gangs, war, racial disorder and the violation of human rights.
Naples Mayor Luigi de Magistris told ANSA: "It is a false,
superficial judgement, from someone who evidently never spent a
day of his life in Naples, a city full of problems but which is
not in the place in the world rankings where the Sun puts it".
Local theatre and film actor Fortunato Cerlino, who played
ruthless boss Pietro Savastano in the global TV Camorra crime
hit Gomorra, said "I'm not interested in commenting on a
tabloid. We know what kind of news they carry, only
sensationalism.
"I don't mean Naples is Switzerland, or that you don't risk
having your watch stolen in the street...but it's not an
international survey drafted by an authoritative research
agency, which would have made for interesting reading".
The dean of Naples Federico II University, Gaetano Manfredi,
said "we are the victims of the stupidity of many of the
rankings which show how strong the prejudice against Naples is".
Adoptive Neapolitan Sylvain Bellenger, the French head of the
Capodimonte Museum for the last two years, said: "I've been here
many times in my life, and at different times. Naples is not a
dangerous city, if anything it's chaotic, but it's a sweet
chaos".
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