Italy fumes as The Sun brands Naples one of world’s 10 most dangerous cities

The Sun newspaper in Britain has listed the Italian city of Naples among the world’s top 10 most dangerous cities, alongside ISIS-held Raqqa in Syria and Somalia’s capital Mogadishu, drawing an angry response from the Italian Embassy in the UK which said the tabloid is confusing fiction with reality.

The embassy took to Twitter to respond to the British newspaper, pointing out that Naples is “not included in any global index on 50 most dangerous cities.”

Naples mayor, Luigi De Magistris, also blasted the piece in The Sun, entitled “Bad World,” calling it “laughable.”

"It is a false, superficial judgement, from someone, who has evidently never spent a day of his life in Naples, a city full of problems but certainly not in the place in the world rankings where The Sun puts it," De Magistris said as cited by the ANSA news agency.

Naples became the only Western European city in the rankings, with author Guy Birchall claiming that “mafia killings are common place in Naples.”

According to the ranking applied in the article, the southern Italian city has problems with murder, gangs and drugs.

© thesun.co.uk

Naples does have a bad reputation due to the historic strength of the Camorra mafia there, The Local reports. Organized crime has some hold on the city, despite the government’s attempts to curb its activities.

There’s really been a rise in crime in Naples in 2016, with 77 murders, 38 of them related to organized crime, recorded by the police, according to the Corriere del Mezzogiorno paper.

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The star of the global television series, ‘Gomorra,’ dedicated to Camorra mafia, Fortunato Cerlino, said The Sun article was “not an international survey drafted by an authoritative research agency, which would have made for interesting reading.”

However, Cerlino added, “I don't mean Naples is Switzerland, or that you don't risk having your watch stolen in the street.”

The list, compiled by the UK tabloid, also included ISIS' de facto capital in Syria, Raqqa, the Somalian capital Mogadishu, Australia’s Perth, St Louis in the US, Ukraine’s capital Kiev and Grozny, the capital of Russia’s Republic of Chechnya.

Ironically, Grozny took top spot in the ranking of the Top 100 cities in Russia perceived as being the safest by their residents, which was released by Domofond.ru website in June.

The survey was based on the answers of 258,441 respondents across the country, who were asked to confirm or deny the statement: “I live in a safe neighborhood and I’m not afraid to walk the streets at night.”