November 11, 2007	Sunday	Shawwal 29, 1428

ROME: Romanian residents of a teeming settlement on the western edge of Rome live in fear of expulsion or xenophobic violence in the wake of the brutal murder of an Italian woman blamed on a Romanian youth.

“I asked my 15-year-old son not to go to school,” said a woman of about 40 who declined to give her name. “It takes two hours, and it’s too dangerous now. But since he won’t listen to me, I’m anxious every evening waiting for him to come home.”

Like her, most of the camp’s residents are jittery following an attack last Friday in a nearby supermarket car park in which three Romanians were badly beaten in apparent reprisal for the Oct 30 murder of Giovanna Reggiani, the 47-year-old wife of an Italian naval officer.

A 24-year-old Romanian of Roma (gypsy) origin was arrested in the case after being identified to police by a compatriot.

The assault raised fears of a vendetta against Romanians, Italy’s largest immigrant community.

“The hatred unleashed among Italians by this act makes me very afraid,” said a 36-year-old Rom who gave only her first name, Gina. “Why should the 5,000 residents of the camps around Rome pay for what this jerk did?”

The city of Rome last year allowed an association to take over the management of the Salone camp, replacing makeshift homes with prefabricated housing with running water and electricity.

Some 700 people, mainly Roma from Romania, Serbia and Bosnia, are crowded into about 100 of these dwellings, each measuring about 15 square metres (160 square feet).

“Today for the first time I’m afraid to go shopping for groceries,” said Gina, who has lived at the camp for seven years.

So far 42 people, mainly Romanians, have been expelled from Rome, Milan, Turin and Genoa under an emergency decree issued after Reggiani’s murder that facilitates the expulsion of EU members considered a threat to public safety.

Bucharest has protested the move, while Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi on Monday said it was “a necessary action but also a fair one”. He warned however against ‘criminalising’ the whole community.

A Bosnian resident at Salone, nursing the youngest of her 10 children on the stoop of her home, asked: “Do you think they’re going to expel us too?”

The measure is especially worrying to those without residence papers or declared employment.

Some 150,000 Roma of various nationalities live in Italy, according to the lay Catholic organisation Sant’Egidio.

According to official figures, 342,200 Romanians live in Italy, though the Catholic charity Caritas estimates the number at 556,000.

Arrivals have increased since Romania joined the European Union in January.—AFP