"For Ilaria, for Sara, for all the women". Killings of Ilaria Sula and Sara Campanella spark new femicide debate in Italy.

Thousands of people took to the streets in Rome and the Sicilian city of Messina on Thursday following the murders of two female students in the latest femicide cases to shock Italy.

Students protested at Rome's Sapienza University in honour of Ilaria Sula, a 22-year-old statistics student whose body was found in a suitcase in a ravine to the east of the capital on Wednesday.

Sula, who was of Albanian origin but had lived in the central Italian city of Terni since she was a child, had been missing since 25 March and was stabbed to death.

Her former boyfriend Mark Samson, a 23-year-old Filippino-Italian, is being questioned by police on suspicion of her murder and of hiding a body.

"For Ilaria, for Sara, for all of the women", came the chants of the Sapienza students who left flowers outside the statistical sciences department where Sula studied.

Centinaia di persone si sono radunate all'Università la Sapienza di Roma per ricordare Ilaria Sula, la ventiduenne studentessa di Scienze statistiche uccisa dal suo ex fidanzato Mark Samson pic.twitter.com/Ixj1lZ5SIc

— Tg3 (@Tg3web) April 3, 2025

"It was not a sudden outburst, a moment of madness that killed Ilaria" - a student shouted from a loudspeaker - "but it is the sense of supremacy of man over woman. All this is the result of a patriarchal system".

In a statement, La Sapienza rector Antonia Polimeni said Sula's death was "an atrocious and brutal femicide, that leaves us speechless and heartbroken", adding: "We can no longer stand idly by to episodes of femicide."

The students protesting at La Sapienza on Thursday also remembered Sara Campanella, a 22-year-old trainee nurse from Palermo, who was murdered in broad daylight in Messina on Monday afternoon.

Campanella was stabbed in the neck by a man - later identified by prosecutors as 27-year-old fellow student Stefano Argentino - who has confessed to the crime.

On Thursday evening large crowds attended a candle-lit procession in Messina in memory of Campanella whose mother Cetty Zaccaria received sustained applause for her words of thanks to the students and local residents for "giving Sara a voice".

Messina mayor Federico Basile, who attended the procession, said the city would dedicate a place in memory of the murdered student.

In Rome the city council began its proceedings on Thursday with a moment of silence dedicated to Sula and Campanella and to all victims of femicide.

Around 2,000 students took to the streets in the northern city of Bologna on Wednesday evening for an "angry torchlight procession" to express their indignation over the latest femicides in Italy and to remember the victims.

Under the banner "Once again, Sara and Ilaria, like Giulia", protesters recalled the high-profile killing of 22-year-old engineering student Giulia Cecchettin in November 2023.

She was stabbed to death by her former boyfriend Filippo Turetta who was jailed for life last December.

Cecchettin's murder caused a wave of anger in Italy, with her sister and father helping to spur a major debate about femicide, patriarchy and gender-based violence.

A year and a half later, the killings of Sula and Campanella have sparked renewed anger in Italy where 11 women have been killed since the start of 2025.

Image: Rome protest on International Day for the Eliminiation of Violence against Women, 25 November 2023. Photo credit: Fabrizio Maffei / Shutterstock.com.