Around 1000 people joined a protest march on Saturday to demand government action on toxic waste sunk by the mafia in boats off the southern Italian coast, media reports said.

"The state must consider this task a priority by allocating funding and supporting the magistrates' inquiry, and monitoring polluted sites and cleaning them up," said the president of the environmental organisation Legambiente, Vittorio Cogliati Dezza, quoted by Italian media.

The demonstrators marched through the town of Amantea holding banners reading "No to the Calabria dustbin."

Former anti-corruption judge Antonio di Pietro, now head of the opposition Italy of Values party (IDV), took part to "show the indignation of honest Italians who are fed up of being governed and crushed by racketeering and speculation."

On 12 September Italian authorities discovered a ship that was sunk by the mafia off the coast of southern Italy with 120 barrels of radioactive waste on board.

The 110-metre ship, The Cunsky, was found 1640 feet under water and around 28 kilometres from the coast of Calabria, according to prosecutors.

It is among 32 vessels carrying toxic material that have been sunk by the mafia in the Mediterranean, according to the prosecutor's office in Reggio Calabria.

Legambiente has said former members of the region's Ndrangheta mafia had admitted that the crime syndicate was paid to sink ships with radioactive material for the last 20 years.

AFP

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