ITALY:In a tense atmosphere prompted by strict security measures, the small Calabrian villages of San Luca, Siderno and Bovalino yesterday buried five of the six people killed in a Mafia shoot-out last week in the German town of Duisburg.
Concerned that the funerals might prompt more violence between rival mafiosi, Reggio Calabria's public safety committee allowed them to take place only under stringent conditions.
Funeral processions both to the churches and to the cemeteries were banned, while the main door to the Church of Santa Maria della Pietà in San Luca was partially closed with wooden planks. TV cameras were denied access to the inside of the churches with cameramen being obliged to film the funerals from some distance.
Furthermore, a strong police presence was on hand in all three villages.
Two of last week's victims, the brothers Marco and Francesco Pergola, 20 and 22 respectively, were buried yesterday in Siderno, while three other men, Marco Marmo, Sebastiano Strangio and Francesco Giorgi, were buried in Bovalino and San Luca. A sixth man, Tommaso Venturi (18), is to be buried in his native Germany.
As the bodies of the two Pergola brothers were carried out of the church, they were greeted with a sustained round of applause.
Later, retired policeman Cosimo Pergola, father of the two brothers and one of the parents who had argued for the right to a public funeral, told Sky Italia TV: "My boys were in Germany, just to work. As for all the rest, I don't know anything. My sons were innocent, we're looking for justice, not a vendetta."
In San Luca, the Bishop of Locri, Mgr Giancarlo Bregantini, led an impromptu procession through the town to the church. Speaking to reporters afterwards, the bishop said he believed that some of the women of the San Luca Mafia families might be able to generate a wave of forgiveness. Speaking directly to the as yet unknown killers, the bishop then said: "God has seen you and he will call you to account for the blood you have spilled."
The Duisburg killings last week may have been the latest chapter in a long-running feud between rival gangs of the 'Ndrangheta, the Calabrian Mafia.
Yesterday, the German daily Bild carried an interview with an unnamed former 'Ndrangheta operative who claimed that Sebastiano Strangio (38) had been the target of the killers and that the other five men had been killed simply because they were witnesses to the shooting.
All six were shot in the head as they sat in two cars outside a pizza restaurant in central Duisburg in the early hours of Wednesday last week, after they had held a small party to celebrate Tommaso Venturi's 18th birthday.
German and Italian police believe some of the six, if not all, were linked to the 'Ndrangheta.