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CRIME

Shock in Italy after two young boys among three killed in Rome shooting

A man shot and killed two children playing outside their home as well as an elderly man in a town near Rome on Sunday before apparently committing suicide, officials and media said.

Published: 14 June 2021 14:51 CEST
Shock in Italy after two young boys among three killed in Rome shooting
People stand next to the crime scene following the shooting in Ardea, south of Rome, on Sunday. Photo: CLAUDIO PERI/ANSA/AFP

Local mayor Mario Savarese said the gunman and the victims – reported to be two brothers aged five and 10, and an 84-year-old man – were from the same housing development in Ardea, where the tragedy unfolded.

The shooter holed up in a nearby apartment for three hours as negotiators tried to persuade him to come out.

Armed officers finally forced their way in and found his lifeless body, the Ansa news agency said.

He appeared to be shooting randomly when he hit the boys playing in a park.

The elderly man, who had been cycling past, reportedly confronted the killer as he was about to start shooting.

Alessio D’Amato, health commissioner for the local region of Lazio, confirmed the deaths of the children after they were taken to hospital.

“I have just received a telephone call I would never have wanted to have,” he said in a statement.

 He added: “I am deeply shocked by what happened and express all my regret and my heartfelt condolences to the family and the entire Ardea community, which today is in terrible mourning for this tragedy.”

 A lawyer representing the family said the father did not know the shooter.

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ROME

Italy approves Holocaust museum for Rome after 20-year wait

Italy's government has approved funding for a long-awaited Holocaust museum in Rome, where nearly 2,000 Jewish people were rounded up during World War II and sent to concentration camps.

Published: 17 March 2023 17:20 CET
Italy approves Holocaust museum for Rome after 20-year wait

A national museum in the capital would “contribute to keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive,” read a statement from the government after ministers agreed to fund the project late on Thursday.

The announcement came on the heels of an official visit to Rome last week by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Italian Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano said 10 million euros had been allocated to begin construction of the museum, a long-delayed project first proposed in the 1990s.

Ruth Dureghello, head of Rome’s Jewish community, welcomed the news but called for “definite timeframes and choices that can be made quickly to guarantee the capital of Italy a museum like all the great European capitals”.

READ ALSO: Stumble stones: How Rome’s smallest monuments honour Holocaust victims

The architect in charge of the project, Luca Zevi, told AFP the museum should be completed in three years.

Symbolically, the museum will be built on land adjacent to the park of Villa Torlonia, the residence of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, who was in power from 1922 to 1943.

Mussolini introduced racial laws in 1938 that began stripping civil rights from Jews in Italy and culminating in their deportation. 

On October 16, 1943, German troops supported by Italian Fascist officials raided Rome’s ancient Ghetto, rounding up and deporting about 1,000 Jewish people.

READ ALSO: Four places to remember the Holocaust in Italy

Subsequent roundups captured another 800 people, and nearly all were killed in the concentration camp of Auschwitz.

The Holocaust saw the genocide of six million European Jews between 1939 and 1945 by the Nazis and their supporters.

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