Thirty years ago, on the 21st July 1991, Fabio De Pandi and his family were getting into the car to return home. They had been visiting some friends who lived in Rione Traiano, Soccavo district, on the western outskirts of Naples.
Suddenly all hell broke loose. A mafioso from the Puccinelli Camorra clan unleashed a hailstorm of bullets. It was an attempt to assassinate a member of the rival Perrella clan. The two clans had collaborated for several years, but a few months earlier they had fallen out. The disagreement relating to how the proceeds of a robbery should be split.
The resulting Camorra feud painted the roads of Naples red with blood.
The De Pandis had found themselves in the middle of one of the endless battles between the clans. One of the bullets hit the little Fabio. It entered through his arm but travelled all the way to his chest. He died almost instantaneously, making him one of the youngest victims of the Camorra.
Thirty years later, on the 21st July 2021, the De Pandi family and several officials and members of NGOs met in via Gennaro Serra, a few steps from Piazza del Plebiscito in the centre of Naples. The event involved the inauguration of a plaque in memory of the child.
“The little prince”
The Polis Foundation also marked the anniversary of the death of Fabio De Pandi. They announced the publication of a book called ” The little prince ” written by Raffaele Sardo.
In an interview with La Repubblica:
“Fabio was prevented from being great because his executioners were probably prevented from being children. This is why remembering Fabio, for us at the Polis Foundation, has represented for years not only the experience of remembering the many innocent little ones stolen from life too early, but also a stimulus to intervene on potential executioners.
Fabio’s murder will never make sense, but it must certainly represent, even after thirty years, a warning for everyone: institutions, educational realities, citizens. Fabio, Simonetta, Annalisa, Noemi and the many violated children, to whom the Polis Foundation wanted to name the reading points in the Campania region, deserve everyone’s commitment. No one excluded “
Don Tonino Palmese, President of the Polis Foundation
