Italian politicians have called for greater police presence in Naples after a young Swedish tourist was mugged while live streaming from her phone.
Social media personality Elina had been chatting to her 31,800 followers live on Twitch for almost half an hour before peering down a dark and narrow alleyway and making light of Naples’ reputation as a dangerous city.
“If I were to die on camera or on stream, I think that would be good content, not in that sense but I would become famous,” Elina said to her followers, seconds before an unidentified assailant zoomed past her on a scooter and snatched her phone.
Italy’s third largest city has struggled for decades to overcome its reputation as a dangerous tourist destination because of its association to the mafia and petty crime.
“I kind of lost track of where I was so maybe I happened upon a bad area and a bad street,” said Elina, who doesn’t use her surname publicly.
“Naples has been nice aside from what happened,” the 24-year-old from Uppsala told The Independent. “An Italian lady came up to me and was nice, she gave me her phone to call my parents, my dad was just a few streets away.”
The full time streamer was left baffled and without her phone but said she had seen a spike in followers because of the incident. “Some nice Neapolitans joined to give their condolences to what happened,” she said from her brother’s telephone.
Italians took to Instagram and Twitter to comment. “I feel sorry for you. I am from Napoli as well and this is a cancer of my town,” one social media user wrote.
“I will keep streaming if I can get my account back, I will try to do some streaming on my iPad and then go home and rest and get a new phone,” she said. “I’m trying to take it with a little bit of humour.”
But local authorities like councillor Francesco Borrelli who have been battling crime in Naples for decades and took the matter to heart.
“The return of tourists should be defended, intensify controls in the city centre streets,” Mr Borrelli said on Twitter.
“We cannot allow the city to be delivered to criminals … we want a liveable Naples, where tourists can appreciate its beauty without being robbed,” Mr Borrelli told local media on Sunday. “Let’s not let it go back to people saying that Naples is a city to stay away from, let’s put the criminals on the run, not the tourists.”
While the port city is seeing a positive rise in tourism it is still battling to emerge from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and members of the hospitality business have spoken out against petty crime and the repercussions it is having on national and international arrivals to Naples.
“In just a few hours in the city centre, where most tourists are concentrated, there were seven thefts,” the head of Naples B&B committee Fabrizio de Lella said on Sunday.
“On their scooters, the delinquents steal mobile phones, darting through alleys, where it’s forbidden to ride – this means there’s a lack of control of the territory, and criminals act with impunity.”
