A 32-year-old Colombian woman was kidnapped, held captive for more than 72 hours and repeatedly gang-raped in a derelict squat on the outskirts of Rome, Italian police have confirmed — with five irregular migrants arrested following her escape and eleven others expelled from the country.
The victim, who had been in Italy for only ten days, was approached outside a restaurant on the evening of 19 May by a man offering a hashish deal. She was forced into a van, stripped of her phone and documents and taken to a squatted building on Via Cesare Tallone in the Tor Cervara neighbourhood of eastern Rome. Investigators say she was drugged with substances that impaired her ability to resist and subjected to repeated sexual assault by multiple men, while being threatened with death if she attempted to escape or call for help.
After approximately three days in captivity, she managed to flee the building in a near-naked state and flagged down a passerby on the street, who helped her contact emergency services. She was taken to the Policlinico Casilino hospital, where medical examinations confirmed signs of prolonged sexual violence and the presence of drugs in her system, fully corroborating her account.
Police raided the Tor Cervara squat and the victim identified five men inside as her attackers. All five — irregular non-EU migrants — were arrested on charges of aggravated group sexual violence. Eleven further individuals found at the site were issued expulsion orders and transferred to detention centres pending removal from Italy. Weapons and drugs were also seized during the operation, according to reports by RomaToday, Today.it, Corriere della Sera and TGCOM24.
The Tor Cervara building is not unknown to authorities. The squat has a documented history of drug dealing, weapons seizures, fires, violence and repeated police interventions, and has been the subject of prior eviction attempts that failed to permanently clear the site. Its continued existence as a hub for criminal activity despite years of official attention has drawn renewed anger following the attack.
The case has reignited Italy’s deeply contested debate over irregular migration and the management of illegal squats in Rome’s neglected periphery. It echoes the 2018 case of Desiree Mariottini, a 16-year-old Italian girl who was drugged, gang-raped and killed in an abandoned building in Rome’s San Lorenzo district by migrants from Senegal and Nigeria — a case that provoked national outrage and intensified demands for tougher enforcement in similar environments.
The Colombian victim is currently receiving medical and psychological care. Italian prosecutors have launched a formal investigation into the five men in custody.
