Alleged feuding Mafia members arrested

ROME, Aug. 30 (UPI) -- Police in Italy Thursday arrested 33 alleged members of two Calabrian Mafia families caught up in a long bloody feud.

Some of those arrested were relatives of six men killed earlier this month in a massacre outside a pizzeria in Duisburg, Germany, the Italian news agency Ansa reported. Police said that no one picked up Thursday was believed to have been directly involved in that killing.

Eleven more alleged gangsters were still being sought. Eight of those arrested were women.

National Anti-Mafia Prosecutor Piero Grasso said that one aim of the sweep is to "help stop the feud escalating." Among those arrested were Giovanni Nirta, reputed head of one of the families, and suspects in an ambush aimed at Nirta last Christmas that killed his wife.

Investigators say that the feud was triggered by egg-throwing at a village festival in 1991. After a series of tit-for-tat killings in the 1990s, the two groups apparently declared a truce that was broken by the attack on Nirta.