Women's rights activists cover Rome's Spanish Steps in red paint

ROME (Reuters) - Women's rights activists protested against feminicide on Wednesday by painting Rome's famed Spanish Steps red, symbolically representing the blood of female victims of violence.

Members of the movement called "Bruciamo tutto" - or "Let's burn everything" - poured cans of the liquid down the Spanish Steps and also made prints of their hands with it.

"This is symbolically the blood of all the people who are killed," said one of the activists involved in the protest before being taken away by police.

"We will no longer accept this, it must stop now," he said.

The activists said the liquid was a type of paint that would cause no lasting damage to the Spanish Steps, a major tourist landmark in the Italian capital.

Some 120 women were killed in Italy in 2023, according to data published by the national statistics bureau ISTAT.

More than half of the homicides are committed by partners or former partners of the victims and about 20% by other relatives, the data showed.

(Reporting by Antonio Denti, writing by Oriana Boselli, Editing by Giulia Segreti and Gareth Jones)