Nine hundred steps, a few less, beyond those of the side streets that surround Via delle Medaglie d’Oro. It is not a huge perimeter but for several years now it has become the Bronx of the city. The latest violent phenomenon occurred on Saturday afternoon around 4pm, a few steps from the “Free Radio” park, when an Asian man suffered the worst, suffering a large and deep wound in the temporal region. A medical car, an ambulance, the carabinieri and the police attended the scene. Shortly afterwards, the latter identified the alleged attacker in one of the neighboring streets. But the cases repeat themselves abundantly. The most sensational ones in recent months tell of a woman whose earlobes were torn off in an attempt to take away her earrings and another who was thrown to the ground together with a child by a pickpocket. Episodes that those who live in the neighborhood know, share and repeat while chatting during a coffee break or buying fruit. There is a climate of fear and a common denominator valid for everyone: restoring dignity and security to the neighborhood. It is not simple despite the constant commitment of the “Via delle Medaglie d’Oro” and “Piazzale delle Autolinee” Committees, which merged some time ago to make the echo of their voice more pronounced, and the resistance of some Cosenza traders, who have now become the “minority”. The Bronx in the city is about a kilometer as the crow flies, where the ratio between Italian and foreign businesses is now almost 1:2. In the most multi-ethnic neighbourhood, coexistence is still not easy. Different languages are heard in the background buzz: Hindi, Urdu, Telugu, Bengali, Tamil, Mandarin and Wolof. Cosenza dialect and Italian are less frequent.
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