Two months after the highly publicized arrest in Sicily of the boss on the run Matteo Messina Denaro, some 50,000 people demonstrated on Tuesday in Milan, the metropolis in the north of the country, to honor the memory of the victims of the mafia.
In the crowd gathered in front of the cathedral of Milan on the occasion of this national day of the victims of the mafia were hundreds of their relatives. Many of them, who are still awaiting justice, carried photos of their loved ones.
"It will be 28 years at the end of the month, and we are still waiting for the truth," Paolo Marcone, 50, whose father was killed in 1995 by the mafia in Foggia, Puglia, told AFP. (south).
Francesco Marcone, a local official, had just returned home when he was shot in the back. It was his daughter who found his body on the stairs of the family home.
His son thinks he discovered something he shouldn't have. "These days are necessary to keep memories alive and at the same time to ask for justice and truth (...) We never lose hope", he commented.
According to the police, 50,000 people were present Tuesday in front of the cathedral, where a white sheet bearing the names of many victims had been spread on the ground.
Elisabetta Di Caterina, 52, participated in the demonstration in memory of her brother-in-law Riccardo Angelo, killed at 21 in an ambush by the Camorra, the Neapolitan mafia, near Caserta. The killer was caught and died in prison, but "we demand justice and truth for all the families who are still waiting".
Many indeed still do not know how their loved ones died, which is why "we ask justice to move forward".
Vincenzo Luciano, 55, lost his two brothers, Aurelio and Luigi, to death by the Foggia mafia in 2017 after being caught in a shootout.
"It took the deaths of two other innocent people for the state to wake up and realize that the mafia was here," he told AFP. "Politics should help us more, there should be tougher laws."
Wanted for thirty years by all the police in Italy, Matteo Messina Denaro, the last representative of the old guard of Cosa Nostra, was finally arrested on January 16 in Palermo.
21/03/2023 18:18:08 - Milan (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
