Seventh femicide since mid-August stuns Florence, echoes across Umbria

A 45-year-old woman, Lorena Isceri, was abducted on Thursday afternoon and thrown off a motorway bridge near Florence, allegedly by her ex-boyfriend Federico Vella, according to the Guardian. Her death is the seventh alleged femicide in Italy since mid-August, a toll that has renewed national anguish over violence against women.

The Guardian reported that Isceri was taken on Thursday and killed in an attack that has shocked the Tuscan capital and beyond. Police are investigating Vella, who is said to have been her former partner, as the prime suspect in the case.

For Umbria, the tragedy lands close to home. The region shares a border with Tuscany, and its hill towns have seen their own painful episodes of gender-based violence in recent years. The news from Florence arrives as communities across inland Italy prepare for the autumn, a season when domestic tensions often rise after the summer's respite.