BRINDISI: A 16-year-old girl died and five other teens were seriously injured in southern Italy yesterday in a bomb blast outside a vocational school, with local media pointing to a possible Mafia link.
There were scenes of chaos and carnage after a powerful blast went off at the entrance of the building as pupils were arriving for classes at the Francesca Morvillo Falcone school in the city of Brindisi.
“I was opening the window and the blast wave hit me. I saw kids on the ground. All blackened. Their books on fire. It was terrifying,” an employee at the prosecutor’s office next to the school told the Repubblica daily.
Another eyewitness told local television: “I had just gone into the bar in front of the school. I saw everything falling.”
A tearful middle-aged woman, who was still visibly in shock, said: “It was an incredibly powerful explosion. I saw a girl lying on the ground and another one who got up and started shouting: ‘Melissa! Melissa!’”
The victim was identified as Melissa Bassi, local emergency officials said.
The device was composed of three gas canisters with a timer device hidden in a container next to a wall just outside the school, Italian media reported, citing investigators.
According to an emergency official, one 16-year-old girl “did not survive”.
Hospital official Paola Ciannamea told reporters that one of the injured girls was in a “very serious condition”. The four other victims being treated are all suffering from extensive burns, including one who risks losing her legs and another who has serious injuries to her chest.
The blast went off around 7.45am local time. Most Italian schoolchildren and students attend classes on Saturday.
The school, which teaches social work, tourism and fashion, was due to hold a fashion show later in the day.
The bomb caused shockwaves across Italy, with Prime Minister Mario Monti ordering flags be flown at half-mast across the country for three days. The government called it “an extremely grave and atrocious criminal act”.
Monti promised to prevent “the return of subversive temptations in our country” – a reference to a wave of attacks by political militants and the Mafia that traumatised Italian society in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
The president of neighbouring France, François Hollande, expressed his country’s “deep solidarity” with Italy in the face of this “odious attack”.
Both Monti and Hollande are attending the G8 summit in the US.
“This is a horrific attack that feels like sacrilege. We must act firmly and with determination,” said Nichi Vendola, governor of the local Apulia region.
No one has claimed responsibility for the blast and Interior Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri said investigators were looking into “numerous hypotheses”. She cautioned against hasty conclusions and said the techniques used in the bombing were “unusual” and “anomalous”.
Media reports said the police were looking into a possible Mafia connection.
But Brindisi mayor Mimmo Consales cast doubt on a Mafia link. “The device, the methods used, do not correspond to organised crime,” he said.
Top anti-Mafia prosecutor Piero Grasso visited the scene of the blast .
The school is named after the wife of the famous anti-Mafia judge Giovanni Falcone, who was killed by Cosa Nostra in a bomb attack in Sicily along with her and their three bodyguards 20 years ago on Wednesday.
The Sacra Corona Unita, the local Mafia in the Apulia region, is involved in drug smuggling and human trafficking. The group has been targeted by numerous police raids in recent days and is believed to be on the wane. – Sapa-AFP