Italians sunbathe meters from dead gypsies

[Master of Ossus]

From CNN

(CNN) -- Italian newspapers, an archbishop and civil liberties campaigners expressed shock and revulsion on Monday after photographs were published of sunbathers apparently enjoying a day at the beach just meters from where the bodies of two drowned Roma girls were laid out on the sand.

Italian news agency ANSA reported that the incident had occurred on Saturday at the beach of Torregaveta, west of Naples, southern Italy, where the two girls had earlier been swimming in the sea with two other Roma girls. Reports said they had gone to the beach to beg and sell trinkets.

Local news reports said the four girls found themselves in trouble amid fierce waves and strong currents. Emergency services responded 10 minutes after a distress call was made from the beach and two lifeguards attended the girls upon hearing their screams.

Two of them were pulled to safety but rescuers failed to reach the other two in time to save them.

The Web site of the Archbishop of Naples said the girls were cousins named Violetta and Cristina, aged 12 and 13.

Their bodies were eventually laid out on the sand under beach towels to await collection by police. Photographs show sunbathers in bikinis and swimming trunks sitting close to where the girls' feet can be seen poking out from under the towels concealing their bodies. A photographer who took photos at the scene told CNN the mood among sunbathers had been one of indifference.

Other photos show police officers lifting the bodies into coffins and carrying them away past bathers reclined on sun loungers.

"While the lifeless bodies of the girls were still on the sand, there were those who carried on sunbathing or having lunch just a few meters away," Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported.

Corriere della Sera said that a crowd of curious onlookers that had formed around the bodies quickly dispersed.

"Few left the beach or abandoned their sunbathing. When the police from the mortuary arrived an hour later with coffins, the two girls were carried away between bathers stretched out in the sun."

The incident also attracted condemnation from the Archbishop of Naples, Cardinal Crecenzio Seppe. "Indifference is not an emotion for human beings," Seppe wrote in his parish blog. "To turn the other way or to mind your own business can sometimes be more devastating than the events that occur."

Recent weeks have seen heightened tensions between Italian authorities and the country's Roma minority amid a crackdown by Silvo Berlusconi's government targeting illegal immigrants and talk by government officials of a "Roma emergency" that has seen the 150,000-strong migrant group blamed for rising street crime.

That has provided justification for police raids on Roma camps and controversial government plans to fingerprint all Roma -- an act condemned by the European Parliament and United Nations officials as a clear act of racial discrimination. Popular resentment against Romanies has also seen Roma camps near Naples attacked and set on fire with petrol bombs by local residents.

In a statement published on its Web site, the Italian civil liberties group EveryOne said Saturday's drowning had occurred in an atmosphere of "racism and horror" and cast doubt on the reported version of events, suggesting that it appeared unusual for the four girls to wade into the sea, apparently casting modesty aside and despite being unable to swim.

"The most shocking aspect of all this is the attitude of the people on the beach," the statement said. "No one appears the slightest upset at the sight and presence of the children's dead bodies on the beach: they carry on swimming, sunbathing, sipping soft drinks and chatting."

The first photo is pretty disgusting: the report didn't play up the behavior of the beach-goers at all.

[Darth Wong]

Do beaches normally clear out when somebody drowns, or do people just stay and continue to sunbathe? I guess I'm just curious what "normal" behaviour is in this sort of situation. I've never been a sunbather myself, and I do most of my swimming at pools, not beaches.

[Big Phil]

To play devil's advocate, what should everyone on the beach have done? Why should they have gone home, as the article seems to suggest? The Archbishop of Naples probably would have preferred that everyone immediately left the beach and gone to church, but honestly, what should the people have done?

For example, I don't get out of my car and walk home just because I pass an accident on the side of the road on my way to work. I don't immediately go home and think about homelessness (and feel guilty) just because I walk past a homeless guy begging on the side of the street.

[Zac Naloen]

Do beaches normally clear out when somebody drowns, or do people just stay and continue to sunbathe? I guess I'm just curious what "normal" behaviour is in this sort of situation. I've never been a sunbather myself, and I do most of my swimming at pools, not beaches.

Normally emergency services at least clear that area of the beach. But this is Italy, they have some strange ideas about public safety.

[Big Phil]

Do beaches normally clear out when somebody drowns, or do people just stay and continue to sunbathe? I guess I'm just curious what "normal" behaviour is in this sort of situation. I've never been a sunbather myself, and I do most of my swimming at pools, not beaches.

Normally emergency services at least clear that area of the beach. But this is Italy, they have some strange ideas about public safety.

How far away are the beachgoers from the bodies? 50 feet, 100 feet, 300 feet? Telephoto lenses can seriously distort images, so it's possible the people in the photos were actually pretty far away. Of course, like you said, this is Italy...

[Korvan]

I was once poolside at a resort when a woman in the pool started screaming bloody murder. She had glanced down and seen the body of a very large obese man lying at the bottom of the pool. Everyone was wondering where the hell did that body come from? What had happened, is that the man suffered a heart attack while swimming underwater.

The resorts life guards jumped into immediate action and not without a fair bit of effort managed to get the guy on deck. One of the guards began performing CPR, (an incredibly hot female lifeguard too, the lucky stiff, yeah, yeah, bad taste, but as it turns out, that was not his only turn of luck).

While this was going on, everyone at the pool was intently watching the proceedings and the concern of everyone produced a almost tangible tension in the air. After about a minute, the body suddenly convulsed and the tension immediately evaporated in a loud cheer and applause. For a time afterwards around the pool it was as if the home team had just won a big game.

Had it gone the other way, I don't think people would have left the poolside in mass, but the mood would've been quite somber for some time and I imagine, the pool itself may have been empty. Personally, I wouldn't be anywhere near a dead body, but that is mostly squeamishness and not reverence.

[Darth Wong]

Mind you, a pool is a much smaller and therefore more intimate setting than a beach.

[Netko]

Do beaches normally clear out when somebody drowns, or do people just stay and continue to sunbathe? I guess I'm just curious what "normal" behaviour is in this sort of situation. I've never been a sunbather myself, and I do most of my swimming at pools, not beaches.

I would actually think what the article shows is the normal behavior, especially after also hearing a similar story from my dad (long story short - there was a corpse sunbathing for several hours without nobody noticing, and once it was removed, the prime spot it was occupying was taken by another sunbather within 5 minutes). Yeah yeah, anecdotes are not data and all, but somehow it doesn't really surprise me.

Certainly, with the Roma being in focus in Italy, a story like this is going to get attention, but StW notes, what exactly are the people supposed to do?

[gizmojumpjet]

What sort of reaction do the people complaining expect of on-lookers? Would the appropriate response have been to start wailing and rending their garments over the deaths of complete strangers? It's not like beach goers noticed that the girls were in distress and did nothing to assist. A rescue effort was mounted and two girls were indeed saved. Other people, assuming they even noticed what had happened (and that's a big assumption) refused to let the unfortunate event ruin their day after there was nothing they could do to help? So what? Strangers die every day.

I think the only really troubling part was that the girls were simply left on the beach until the coroners came. Unless there's some preservation of evidence issue involved, they probably should have been taken inside somewhere if at all possible.

[ArmorPierce]

because everyone on the beach needed to end their day at the beach that some may have been planning long and hard for a get together and go grieving to a church? What reaction did you expect?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

because everyone on the beach needed to end their day at the beach that some may have been planning long and hard for a get together and go grieving to a church? What reaction did you expect?

No, they needed to go the fuck somewhere else.

Seeing some dead teenagers would ruin my week, let alone my day.

[salm]

Normally emergency services at least clear that area of the beach. But this is Italy, they have some strange ideas about public safety.

Public safety? How would the place be safer if it had been cleared?

[Melchior]

Normally emergency services at least clear that area of the beach. But this is Italy, they have some strange ideas about public safety.

Public safety? How would the place be safer if it had been cleared?

Cadavers are a health hazard. Still, there was no urgent danger, I suppose. Anyway, the bodies were swiftly removed by the police, AFAIK, and the photos were taken in the brief interval between the failed rescue attempt and the removal.

[gizmojumpjet]

No, they needed to go the fuck somewhere else.

Seeing some dead teenagers would ruin my week, let alone my day.

Why? Would leaving the beach make them un-see the dead kids? Would it bring them back to life? What would leaving the beach after a drowning accomplish, exactly?

[salm]

Normally emergency services at least clear that area of the beach. But this is Italy, they have some strange ideas about public safety.

Public safety? How would the place be safer if it had been cleared?

Cadavers are a health hazard. Still, there was no urgent danger, I suppose. Anyway, the bodies were swiftly removed by the police, AFAIK, and the photos were taken in the brief interval between the failed rescue attempt and the removal.

Hmm.. the ocean is full of cadavers of all sorts of animals. I doubt that a two dead people who are in the ocean for a short time and lie on the beach for a while would increase the health risks.

[Big Phil]

because everyone on the beach needed to end their day at the beach that some may have been planning long and hard for a get together and go grieving to a church? What reaction did you expect?

No, they needed to go the fuck somewhere else.

Seeing some dead teenagers would ruin my week, let alone my day.

Why do they "need to go the fuck somewhere else?"

[Surlethe]

I don't understand why they needed to do anything once the kids were bodies. It's not like there was any sort of pressing first aid or rescue needed; after the drama's over and the corpses are waiting for the morguemen to show up, staying or leaving is a matter of personal taste, not compulsion.

[Mobiboros]

I've been at a beach when people have drowned. The beaches don't clear. People will gawk for a while, then go right back to what they were doing. Many will just sit around. Many won't even notice anything is going on until the ambulance shows up as lifeguards try not to make a huge fuss because a crowd makes life saving efforts harder.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Why do they "need to go the fuck somewhere else?"

Alright, I admit that's basically a visceral belief that some respect should be showed for the remnant human dignity a corpse still has--the dulce et decorum and rituals of formality natural to dealing with the loss of members of our own race, as it were.

[ArmorPierce]

I find it odd that you would say that there is a need to do any kind of ritual or formality since you yourself said that there is no intrinsic value to human life. Or have I misunderstood what you meant?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I find it odd that you would say that there is a need to do any kind of ritual or formality since you yourself said that there is no intrinsic value to human life. Or have I misunderstood what you meant?

Rituals confer value. The statements are perfectly consistent therefore. The argument over whether or not there are positive social benefits in conferring such value on the dead is, I suppose, rather unrelated.

[FSTargetDrone]

No, they needed to go the fuck somewhere else.

Seeing some dead teenagers would ruin my week, let alone my day.

While I agree that the public should not be expected to start vacating the beach en masse, I probably would have left as well, just because I don't want to see the bodies of these two dead children. I would certainly leave if I had children of my own with me. It's a question of taste, more than anything, i suppose.

Is it common in Italy to bring wooden caskets out to transport bodies from the scene of an accident? I'm more familiar with a covered stretcher or gurney being used. It looked like they were headed directly to a graveyard.

[Big Phil]

Why do they "need to go the fuck somewhere else?"

Alright, I admit that's basically a visceral belief that some respect should be showed for the remnant human dignity a corpse still has--the dulce et decorum and rituals of formality natural to dealing with the loss of members of our own race, as it were.

OK, let's quantify this then. Within what radius do people need to vacate the beach? Those within 100 feet of the dead girls, within 500 feet, within visual distance (that could be several miles)?

[Enigma]

Would I leave the beach if I was in such a scenario? No. If they placed the corpses near me, I'd pack up and move away to a different spot not before I snag a few shots of the bodies (yeah I can be morbid.).

But whether people should move away from bodies or not should be up to the individual person if it hasn't been superseded by the police or emergency services.

[aerius]

I got a "Weekend at Bernie's" vibe out of it for some reason.