ITALY PERSPECTIVE

Rome tells Belfast as a 'hunt for foreigners,' and the rioters' rallying cry — 'cacciare gli stranieri,' drive out the foreigners — structures all the Italian coverage. The press describes masked men who 'smash down doors, set homes on fire and conduct a hunt for foreigners, ordering them to leave,' evoking 'the specter of violence out of control.' The most striking detail flagged by Italian correspondents: 'homes set ablaze with children inside.' The victim, Stephen Ogilvie, is precisely identified as a radiographer in the public health service, originally from Scotland — a detail that humanizes and complicates the communal narrative. In east Belfast, 'a group of about a hundred masked men roamed the streets' while firefighters responded 62 times overnight. Italian coverage, like the German, does not hesitate to use the word 'pogrom' and stresses the tipping-point dimension: the fear that the unrest spreads and slips beyond all control. The victim's family, quoted, refuses to let 'this tragedy be used to divide people or feed hostility' — an appeal for calm the Italian press highlights against the spiral.