Naples territory "dramatically out of control": Italian minister

In southern Italian city of Naples, there is a "gangster component that acts on the territory dramatically out of control", Interior Minister Marco Minniti said on Wednesday.

Talking about a "direct attack on the freedom of the citizens," Minniti made the remarks in Naples, where he attended the installation ceremony of the new superintendent of Naples, Antonio de Iesu.

According to local media, Minniti said that the first problem to be addressed is the strengthening of territorial control.

"An answer is needed, starting in the next few hours," he added. The first signal will be, the minister said, "to make it clear that it is the state that controls the territory, in some areas the territory will be saturated with the power and the presence of the state."

In Naples, Minniti also chaired a meeting of the Provincial Committee for Order and Public Safety, with the participation of the mayor of Naples Luigi de Magistris and Vincenzo De Luca, governor of the Campania region.

All the surveillance cameras of the city will be restored to working condition, the minister told reporters after the meeting.

"At the moment 52 percent of the cameras are working, and for me it is not enough," he said.

"We would like to create in Campania, as the first region of the south, the single emergency number, 112. We give a sense of strengthening the institutions of power and it puts us at the forefront also in the European methods," he added.

According to local media reports, at least 50 mafia clans are active in Naples. Endit