A Chinese exchange student in Italy was killed by a passing train as she chased robbers who stole her designer handbag.
Twenty-year-old art student Zhang Yao just renewed her visa in Tor Sapienza, Rome, when someone stole her designer handbag worth €1,000 ($1,062). She was sitting on a bus stop bench in front of the Via Patini immigration office.
Zhang then called Zou Xiao, a friend, and told that she was chasing not just one, but three men. Zou claimed that she tried to stop Zhang from pursuing the thieves as they only took her handbag; her documents were safe.
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Zou quoted Zhang as saying, “My bag has been stolen”, “Help, I am being attacked”, and “I’m lost, I don’t know where I am.”
But it seems Zhang was determined to get her handbag back and chased the thieves onto a nearby railway. It did not take long before Zou heard a rustling sound and a noise akin to another person grabbing the phone, the Italian Insider said.
Staff from an industrial warehouse close to the immigration office and the railway reported hearing screams last Monday, the day when Zhang went missing. They reviewed their CCTV footage, found a young woman on the railway embankment and tipped the police.
However, cops found nothing.
It was already Friday when Zhang’s body was located underneath bushes close to the railway, 800 meters from the immigration office. Li Fan, director of the consular section in Rome’s Chinese Embassy, confirmed that the exchange student’s body was found on the day, Xinhua reported.
Zhang came from northern China’s Inner Mongolia. She moved to Rome in March 2016 to attend the Academy of Fine Arts.
