News
Moments of fear on Saturday evening in the historic center of Mazara del Vallo. It was around 10.30pm when an argument even resulted in a stab wound. It happened at the intersection between Via Dante Fiorentino and Via Roma where the car of unsuspecting citizens who at that moment were traveling in the direction of Corso Vittorio Veneto was also damaged. The man injured by a blow was rescued by the 118 operators and transferred aboard an ambulance to the “Abele Ajello” hospital; A patrol of the State Police had also arrived at the site of the fight and would have started investigations to ascertain the dynamics of the facts and to identify the culprit, or culprits, of the attack (in the photo, Via Dante Fiorentino where traces of blood are evident on the ‘asphalt).
In recent years, not a weekend goes by without a fight between young people, especially in the city centre. The phenomenon is often linked to that of drug dealing and use which has worsened in the city in recent years. The problem mainly concerns the dealing and use of hard drugs, primarily crack, a dose of which can be purchased for very few euros and whose use also generates aggression; not to mention cocaine, the cost of which has dropped over the years, thus allowing groups of young people to be able to purchase small quantities to share.
The drug problem has led to the resurgence of petty crime in the city: continuous thefts from commercial establishments, acts of vandalism and fights which in this last period, especially on weekends, involve young people, both native and of immigrant origin. In recent days, a 19-year-old from Mazara and an 18-year-old from Tunisia were reported by the police as being responsible for a robbery, an attempted robbery and extortion. The two boys, burdened by police records, would first have robbed a peer at knifepoint and had him hand over cash and then asked another victim for the sum of 30 euros to return a mobile phone which had been removed shortly before by threat.
Aside from the intervention priorities, perhaps by arranging through the Provincial Committee for Public Order and Security a strengthening of the police forces and greater controls also through the aid of video surveillance, we believe – as hoped for by our editorial staff for some time now of a five-year period – which in the medium and long term must necessarily be implemented by those who deal with “youth policies and “social policies” in the municipal area to combat the resurgence of petty crime in the City; we cannot limit ourselves to social actions limited to those services that are financed by the activities of the D53 socio-health district.
