ROMA families are being moved from their homes in Rome after violent protests by neo-fascist groups threatened their safety.

Far-right protesters from the neo-fascist party Forza Nuova screamed insults and threw objects at a van that removed several people in the Italian capital late on Wednesday.

Some did a raised-arm fascist gesture known as the "Roman salute" and sang the Italian national anthem.

READ MORE: Inside the squalor of Italy's Roma camps

Some neighbours in the Torre Maura, in close to Rome's motorway ringroad in the city;s southeast, turned out and applauded the Roma families' departure.

Mayor Virginia Raggi described a "very heavy climate of hatred" during a Tuesday evening protest allegedly incited by two far-right groups, Casa Pound and Forza Nuova.

She said: "We will not give in to racial hatred and to those who foment it."

Ms Raggi said the families, including 33 children, were being placed elsewhere in the meantime.

The attacks on Roma in Italy have come amid social media claims - essentially a race libel, say experts - that "gypsies", or 'zingari' in Italian, steal children.

There have been concerns that similar narratives in neighboorhoods in the UK, including Glasgow's Govanhill, where there is high Roma migration.

Community activists have warned Govanhill faces a similar far-right threat. Earlier this year Raza Sadiq told The Herald that the area was a "ready-made meal" for anti-immigration extremists.