Sicily's famed cliffs stained red by vandals

Police have launched an investigation after Sicily’s famed Scala dei Turchi cliffs were stained red. Believed to be the work of vandals, the cliffs were defaced sometime overnight on Friday.
The normally white cliffs, said once to be the hiding place of pirates, attract thousands of tourists every year. They are one of the island’s most loved attractions thanks in part to the Inspector Montalbano books. The staircase-shaped cliffs near the southern town of Realmonte appear regularly as a backdrop in the popular series about the Sicilian detective.
Sicily’s President Nello Musumeci has condemned the “cowardly gesture”.
Volunteers have moved in to help clean the stained rocks, which fortunately is proving relatively easy to move as they were created with a mix of red plaster dust and water.
The police who are investigating, are checking local CCTV and local stores to see if anyone recently bought the ingredients. They are hoping to catch the culprits either through CCTV identification or identification by a shop assistant.
The cliffs have been in the headlines many times over recent years with the area being taken over by prosecutors in 2020, saying the area was badly damaged.
Vandalism remains a problem throughout Europe with many iconic tourist attractions falling prey to the work of taggers, graffiti artists and vandals. Damaging an area as big as Sicily’s famed cliffs which were stained red takes the work of vandals to a whole new level.

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