(Adnkronos) – The ‘foibe’ killings of up to 15,000 Italian adults and children by Yugoslav partisans between 1943 and 1945 has shaped Italy’s national identity and foreign policy and are “a warning for our time”, foreign minister Antonio Tajani said on Tuesday.
“The memories have shaped essence of our country,” Tajani told a ceremony at the Italian lower house of parliament to commemorate the victims of the ‘foibe’ as the World War II massacres are known.
“Today we honour those children and youngsters through a foreign policy which puts the safeguarding of children at the centre of its commitments throughout the world,” Tajani said.
“The Day of Memory speaks of the present,” Tajani told the ceremony attended by Italy’s president Sergio Mattarella and other top officials including the lower house of parliament speaker Lorenzo Fontana and Senate speaker Ignazio La Russa.
“We live in a world marked by new conflicts and escalating tensions and wars which undermine our hopes and call into question our values and convictions,” Tajani went on.
The killings of so many Italians who were hurled into deep caves (foibe) or forced from their homes for the sole reason of their nationality was “an immense tragedy”, Tajani underlined.
Italy is “working tirelessly” to gather all available evidence on the ‘foibe’ including registers, photographs and every-day objects, “even the mortal remains of those condemned to the dark abyss” by Yugolav leader Josip Broz Tito’s partisans, Tajani noted.
“In today’s “increasingly complex world, riven by conflicts whose primary victims are often children and the most fragile, our thoughts are with the many innocents who during those terrible years disappeared into those deep caves,” he said.
“It was a brutal act of ethnic cleansing, which continues today in its ferocity and which frequently remains hidden,” Tajani went on.
“This year we remember the young victims of the ‘foibe’,” Tajani said, citing the example of two boys aged 13 and 14 who died in the massacres with their mothers and a five-year-old girl who was murdered with her three siblings aged two to ten.
“Who knows how any more victims still lie undiscovered at the bottom of those caves,” Tajani asked.
“We may not have records of them, but we have never forgotten these cases. We remember these children and young people who were martyred,” he said.
“The ‘foibe’ massacres are a warning for our time. These must be no more ethnic cleansing or persecution on the basis of people’s identities, violence justified by ideology, frustrated nationalism and the desire to conquer,” Tajani warned.
In a sign of its commitment to dialogue and peace, in the Middle East, Italy “is on the front line though a health programme in the Gaza Strip which puts us in first place among non-Arab countries,” said Tajani.
And as proof that the protection of minors is at the heart of Italy’s foreign policy, the government has already brought over 200 children from war-razed Gaza and their families to Italy for treatment in the country’s top hospitals, Tajani said.
“Just yesterday evening, 19 of these children arrived at Ciampino airport (outside Rome),” he noted.
Tajani also mentioned war-wracked Ukraine and the children from the embattled country who have been abducted to Russia.
“We strenuously call for their return home,” he said.
“Our thoughts are also with children in Sudan, where the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis has unfolded and to which the Holy Father Pope Leo has rightly drawn attention the attention of governments and the media,” Tajani went on.
Before Christmas, Italy and a Catholic religious order teamed up to send an initial shipload of humanitarian aid to over 2,500 refugee families who have fled to Port Sudan, Tajani stated.
“Lastly, we cannot forgot the high prices paid in blood by young Iranians in recent weeks who took part in street protests calling for freedom and dignity,” Tajani underlined.
Italy “will continue to work for peace and dialogue in Europe and the world: this is the essence of our foreign policy and our national identity and it is enshrined in our constitution,” Tajani underlined.
