Between Naples and Caserta, in Campania regionThere lies the "Land of Flames," a territory where environmental pollution caused by mafias and state negligence continues to cause illness and death.
With around three million inhabitants, the region has some of the highest cancer rates in Italy. For decades, toxic, industrial, and even radioactive waste has been illegally dumped, buried, or burned, with the direct involvement of the Camorra, the local mafia.
Investigative journalist Marilena Natale, from EuronewsShe lives under police protection after receiving threats. She sums up the situation: “The State sold itself to the Camorra, to corrupt businessmen, to corrupt magistrates. That's how the Land of Flames was born.”
Health emergency
The impacts of pollution are reflected in medical diagnoses above the national average. In Frattamaggiore, family doctor Luigi Costanzo reports: “In Italy, a family doctor with 1500 patients registers, on average, nine cases of cancer per year. I have already registered fifteen.”
In addition to cancer, residents face respiratory and degenerative diseases, infertility, and birth defects. The situation was only officially recognized by the Italian government in 2021.
Marzia Cacciopoli lost her nine-year-old son, Antonio, to a brain tumor in 2014. She states: "My son was silently murdered by a State that knew what was happening."
The case reached the European Court of Human Rights, which in January 2025 condemned Italy for prolonged inaction and for endangering the lives of the local population. The ruling obliges the government to implement an environmental action plan, with independent monitoring and a public information platform.
Contested promises
Since February, a special commissioner has been coordinating cleanup efforts in hundreds of contaminated areas. The plan envisions up to ten years of implementation, but the timeline and financial resources are being criticized by activists.
Associations such as Le Mamme di Miriam They remain mobilized. The group is named after a child who survived a rare cancer. The mother, Antonietta Moccia, patrols the region with other women to document environmental crimes. "I no longer trust the institutions that have abandoned us," she says.
The association's president, Anna Lo Mele, reinforces the denunciation: "They let us die, and they continue to let us. This is ecocide."
Despite international condemnation, residents and experts say the state's response is still far from adequate to the severity of the crisis.
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