An Italian couple from Naples have applied for asylum in Switzerland, saying toxic waste dumped around the city poses a health risk to their unborn child.
Piles of trash have lined the streets of Naples since waste collection stopped before Christmas after dumps in the region were declared full. The crisis has led to protests.
Switzerland's mass-circulation Blick newspaper named the couple as Sergio, 32, and Giusi, 30, and said they had applied for asylum in the town of Bellinzona, on the border between Switzerland and Italy.
"If we remain in Naples then we risk dying of cancer," Sergio, a management consultant, was quoted as saying. "We have to save our child." His wife, a molecular biologist, is four-months pregnant.
The couple said thousands of tonnes of chemical and radioactive waste was being dumped around the city.
A spokesman for the department for health and social security in the Swiss canton of Tessin confirmed that a couple from Naples had made a request for asylum.
Since there are agreements on the free movement of people between Italy and Switzerland, it is unlikely their claim – if serious – would be upheld.
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