Fear grips residents in crime-hit Naples

NAPLES, Nov 11 (Reuters) On a recent windy morning, a pool of blood soaked the cobblestones of Piazza del Gesu in the heart of Naples, hours after a man was stabbed and beaten up outside the square's famed baroque church.

Pointing to the stained pavement, a lone policeman posed for television cameras. Inured and all but resigned to the daily violence gripping Italy's third biggest city, residents walked past without looking.

Blessed with a spectacular position at the foot of the Vesuvius volcano, Naples has long been synonymous with chronic crime as it is home to the Camorra, a local version of the Sicilian Mafia thriving on drug trafficking and extortion.

But a spate of murders, stabbings and armed robberies -- ten people were killed in the past two weeks alone -- has left people living in fear and prompted calls by some politicians to send in the army.

Even that would not be a novelty for Naples -- soldiers were deployed here several times in the 1990s to fight organised crime, with little long-term effect.

For now, Romano Prodi's centre-left government has opted to send an extra 1,000 police complete with new motorbikes to drive around Naples' maze of narrow alleys.

But Neapolitans have little faith in the ability of local authorities to confront what is known here as ''the system'' -- an organised criminal network which has penetrated all sectors of the economy, including rubbish collection and funeral houses.

''Here the Camorra is a state within the state,'' said 58-year-old Luigi Lombardi, whose pizzeria overlooks the Sanita neighbourhood where many of the latest shootings occurred.

''It's not the police who control the territory and dictate the law, it's the criminals,'' he said. ''I myself have been robbed seven or eight times''.

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