Death in Venice as gangs clash in clam warfare

9th Nov 2005, 01:36 GMT

Venice's increasingly bitter clam wars have claimed their first victim. The struggle between rival associations of fishermen, each bent on getting the lion's share of the Venice lagoon's rich harvest of clams, culminated last Saturday in a scene out of the Wild West when two gangs clashed at noon on the bridge over the Lombard Canal in Chioggia, at the southern end of the lagoon.