Naples turns onf mafia after murder

Scores of police combed Naples today for gunmen who fatally shot a girl in the head during a mob turf war as Neapolitans angrily denounced the grip held on their city by the Camorra crime syndicate.

Giovanni Durante tearfully said he had agreed to donate the organs of his 14-year-old daughter, Annalisa, who was caught in the shooting when she was standing outside her apartment building on Sunday with some friends.

Doctors at Naples’ Loreto Mare hospital, formally declared the girl dead today, a day after Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu denounced her “barbarous killing.”

Two men on a motorcycle opened fire, apparently aiming at a rival gang’s boss in the Camorra crime world, which runs extortion rackets, illegal gambling, drug and arms trafficking in the Naples area.

The alleged target ran away.

Streets in the Forcella neighbourhood were plastered with announcements of the girl’s funeral, set for Tuesday.

“Free us from these monsters,” said one tribute, a hand-written note attached to a bunch of daisies, left by a mourner near the Durante’s home.

Groups of her friends huddled together, weeping as they sat on curbs. Photos of the girl, with long, blondish hair, sparkling eyes and a contagious smile, were posted in the neighbourhood.

Scores of police patrolled the neighbourhood’s streets and alleys, and a police helicopter flew over head as investigators tried to track down the killers.

Naples Mayor Rosa Russo Jervolino, lamenting that Annalisa was not the first bystander to be killed in Camorra gang warfare in recent years, was expected to meet Italy’s interior minister, who heads the state police forces.

The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano denounced the shooting of Annalisa. It said the attack, as well as the murder last week of a Naples area mother who had denounced paedophilia at her child’s school, demonstrated ”brutal scorn for life”.