San Francisco Frontiers - Victory for mafia waste victims in Italy's 'Land of Fires'

The Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found Italy was aware of the illegal dumping, burying and burning of hazardous waste by the mafia in Campania near Naples -- but failed to act.

Cancer rates are higher than normal in the region, known as the "Land of Fires" and home to Antonietta Moccia, one of the 41 people who brought the case.

Moccia's daughter Miriam was diagnosed with a brain tumour aged five, a medulloblastoma that occurs in around 1.5 people in a million in Europe.

But "in the hospital there were three other cases from Acerra", their Campania town of 60,000, Moccia told AFP ahead of the verdict.

"We are invisible, nobody listens to us", she said.

Moccia is waiting for the territory to be cleaned up and for compensation "to help other families", saying that she herself received no help except from family and friends.

Fortunately Miriam, now 18, has her cancer "under control" and she "is moving forward and wants to turn the page", her mother said.

The ECHR on Thursday gave Rome two years to draw up a "comprehensive strategy" to deal with the situation.

The comprehensive strategy should see the setting up of an independent monitoring mechanism and establishment of a public information platform, the court said.

Lawyer Antonella Mascia said it was an "historic verdict, extremely important.

"It urges (Italy) to resolve this enormous problem, which affects not only our clients but everyone who lives there," Mascia added.

For decades, industrial waste -- often from northern Italy -- was burned in the open air in this vast area, which is also known as the "Triangle of Death".

Instead of paying exorbitant sums to have it disposed of legally, companies paid the Camorra mafia a fraction of the cost to dump it in fields, wells and lakes.

Everything from broken sheets of asbestos to car tyres and containers of industrial-strength glue was burned or left to rot, polluting the air, soil and water.

Years after the issue was made public, mounds of rubbish still lie near waterways, along roads, and in fields where sheep and goats graze.

- 'Two heads' -

Alessandro Cannavacciuolo, one of those bringing the case, first knew something was wrong when his sheep in the early 2000s birthed "deformed lambs, with two heads, two tongues, tails on the side".

"We no longer had lambs, but real monsters," the former farmer told AFP.

As his friends and relatives also fell sick, Cannavacciuolo took it upon himself to find and report illegal dump sites -- at great personal risk.

"We are at war. Anyone who raises their voice, anyone who points out these criminal activities, is threatened," he said.

"Our cars have been shot at, our animals have been killed, we have received threatening letters", he added.

In 1997, a mafia turncoat revealed that hazardous waste had been buried in the area since at least 1988, and parliament was informed.

But it was not until 2013 that the government adopted a decree-law officially defining the "Land of Fires".

Since then, a host of parliamentary inquiries have found the authorities negligent and in some cases complicit.

They have also highlighted the health fallout, including an increase in cases of cancer and foetal and neonatal malformations.

In 2018, the Senate said mobster criminality and political inaction had caused an ecological disaster, while in 2021, Italy's National Health Institute officially recognised the correlation between the pollution and cancer.

Neither the government nor the Campania region responded to an AFP request for comment.

Armando Corsini, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said he was not surprised by their silence, saying they have yet to admit responsibility.

The state "has done nothing to protect these victims and ensure that other cases do not occur", he said.

K.Torres--SFF