Cristina and Violetta Djeordsevic[1][n 1] or Ebrehmovich[4][n 2] were Italian Roma sisters aged 13 and 11[n 3] who drowned in the sea at the public beach at Torregaveta in the Metropolitan City of Naples on 19 July 2008.
[1][10] Cristina and Violetta were born and raised in the "Campo Autorizzato" (authorised camp) at Scampia[1] or Secondigliano in Naples[5] to Branko and Miriana[n 4] Djeordsevic, originally from former Yugoslavia and of Eastern Orthodox faith.
[9] Italians described as having condemned the scene included the "liberal elite",[1] newspapers, and civil liberties groups,[9] as well as Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, the Archbishop of Naples, who posted on his blog that it represented the "coarsening of human sentiment".
[8] Commentators linked the incident to a recent upsurge in anti-Roma populist discourse, including confrontations in working-class neighbourhoods and sensationalist media coverage of alleged Roma criminality.
Agence France-Presse said Italians had made "little reaction to the outcry",[7] and that Cardinal Sepe was "alone among leading figures to condemn the sunbathers' apparent indifference".
[5][8][6] Sergio Romano, while acknowledging the crowd's indifference, like Iannuzzi questioned the racist dimension, pointing out a similar instance of a non-Roma body on a beach in northern Italy in 1997.
[3] The local Catholic parish and the Community of Sant'Egidio organised a memorial mass at nearby Ercolano on 23 July "to send a message of love and solidarity".
[1] In October 2009, the girls' next of kin brought a lawsuit against Bacoli and Monte di Procida municipalities for failure to provide the required marine safety measures at the beach.
[2] SEPSA — Spettatori all'esequie di passeggeri senz'anima, a 2009 play by Mimmo Borrelli [it], is based on two events: the Torregaveta drownings and the death, also in Naples, of Petru Bîrlădeanu, a Romanian street musician killed by crossfire in a Camorra shootout.