On 31st January 2024, the Sicilian city of Catania woke up to the news that a 13-year-old local girl had been gang raped in Villa Bellini, the city’s central park. Her aggressors, all seven of them Egyptian, were charged and detained.  The timing was significant. A mere three days later, the city would commence its yearly celebrations of its patron Saint Agatha, a 3rd-century teenage Christian martyr, a symbol of purity and chastity. Beginning in the morning of 3rd February, local brass bands would take to the streets followed by religious processions, culminating in evening fireworks from the Duomo.  The real celebrations would get underway after dawn mass on the 4th, when St. Agatha’s bust and her relics would be paraded from the Cathedral around the city for two days, returning on the 6th. Normal city life would cease as roads would be cut off, traffic deviated and stores closed…

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