Her father is a drug runner and her mother was married at 15.

The girl, Desiree Mariottini, just 16 years old, became a drug addict. Her home, in Cisterna in Latina, south of Rome, was dysfunctional: she was cared for more by her grandmother.

Last week, she returned to her haunt, the San Lorenzo area in Rome, bombed during the war and still mired in neglect. Apparently she tried to barter a mobile phone for drugs.

She fell in with drug addicts, one supposedly her fiancée, a Malian. She was given drugs and, soon unconscious, she was repeatedly raped by an indeterminate number of people, mostly migrants with an expired residence permit.

Still unconscious, she was left there to die, amid all the dirt, neglect and relics of drug-taking. She died after six hours.

According to news reports, there were more people in the room with all this going on. At one point (this was at night) someone came up with a suggestion that an ambulance should be called but others, including those now under arrest, resisted this and made plans to escape.

The last one to be arrested, a man from Gambia, shaved off his beard and had arrived at Foggia, presumably before escaping to another country, before he was arrested. He was found to be carrying 10kgs of drugs.

Desiree's senseless death struck a deep nerve in the Italian public opinion, as more details emerged.

The brutality of Mariottini's death drew comparisons with the murder and rape of 18-year-old Pamela Mastropietro, whose body was found last winter - in pieces, in a suitcase - in the central Italian city of Macerata.

News that a Nigerian suspect had been arrested last February triggered an Italian man with extreme right-wing views to open fire on African residents, injuring six.

The shooting spree affected Italy's national election, which was won by two populist parties, the 5-Star Movement and the League.

Four suspects - two Senegalese citizens, one Nigerian and one from Gambia - were being held on suspicion of murder, group sexual assault and distributing drugs in the death last week of Desiree, Italian authorities said on Thursday.

Reports that two of the subjects were in the country illegally and that a residency permit for the third had expired have fuelled Italy's already fierce debate about immigration. Some have demanded that the Italian government accelerate the expulsion of immigrants who are in the country illegally, as promised by the League party during the election campaign.

Now, all the authorities in the country are pledging to clean up neglected sites such as the one where Desiree passed her last hours. But these have been in a state of neglect for many, many years and no matter how many times they have been cleaned, they soon revert back to the squalor.

Obviously, this is a story from Italy with a specific Italian context, especially in view of the political situation there and the campaign against immigration and for the expulsion of migrants waged by the League in so many election campaigns.

It explains the anger and revulsion that such stories cause in the population.

But before feeling all holy and free from this kind of background, we must also look around us for we two have islands of neglect and degradation, where drugs rule, where young girls can become drug addicts, where people choose to live in a murky environment and where law and order do not dare venture.

Whether the colour of the miscreants is black or white, whether they are migrants or natives, it is always a great pity to learn of young lives going to waste in such a way.

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