Sex case with military prosecutor’s office

An investigation into allegations that an Italian soldier had sex with underage girls in Eritrea while on mission as a United Nations peacekeeper was triggered by a complaint filed by an officer from the same troop. Maurizio Block, head of the Italian military prosecutor’s office in Padua, Italy, told Reuters news agency that the events took place between November and June 2001 and had been “confirmed by statements from other Italian soldiers and by documents gathered there”. Block said there was evidence that girls as young as 12 were working as prostitutes on the streets of Massawa and Asmara in Eritrea as well as in hotels and bars, Reuters said. Block said the powers of the Italian military police to investigate locally were limited, but that if enough evidence was found, he would pass the case on to civil court under a 1998 Italian law that aims to combat “sex tourism”. Earlier this year, Denmark ordered three peacekeepers home from Eritrea, and fined others for offences such as disturbing public order, but cleared them of sexually abusing a 13 year-old girl, Reuters said. The UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea has issued a statement saying the allegations had been taken very seriously, and were being investigated. It said the mission had “zero tolerance” of such acts.