Riot police, protesters clash in Naples garbage protest

Dozens of protesters clashed with riot police, throwing rocks and bottles and setting two garbage trucks alight in a town near Naples yesterday as anger flared over the region’s waste crisis.

Police said homemade explosives had been found during an overnight search and officers were seen dragging away local women brandishing Catholic rosary beads, who had been blocking trucks from unloading at the local tip.

“The situation is deteriorating. We’re heading for violence,” Naples police chief Santi Giuffre said on SkyTG24 television.

“We have deployed 500 men in the last 24 hours,” he said, adding that the explosives found were “powerful homemade bombs”.

Three policemen were injured and five people were arrested in the violence at Terzigno, some 20 kilometres southeast of Naples.

Tensions have been rising in the Naples region on this flashpoint issue, which helped Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to his election victory in 2008 after he promised to stamp out the waste disposal problem in the area.