Italy remembers victims of Mafia

Italy was commemorating the victims of mob-related violence today, remembering hundreds of policemen, magistrates and citizens killed by the Mafia.

Ceremonies included a meeting between Italian students and the families of Mafia victims, to be held in a Rome stadium, Rome’s city hall said.

Later in the day, the names of 639 people who have been killed by the mob since 1946 were to be read out loud in a ceremony at the Capitoline Hill.

Italy has marked March 21 as a “Day of Memory and of Commitment” to continue the fight against the mob since 1996.

“Today we speak less about the Mafia, but the Mafia still exists,” Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni was quoted as saying by the Il Messaggero newspaper.

The Mafia has kept a low profile in recent years, pressing ahead with activities such as gaining control of public works contracts in Sicily.

Italy’s war against the mob reached its peak after the Sicilian Mafia carried out numerous attacks in the 1980s and early 1990s, including the 1992 back-to-back killings of top anti-Mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.

The murders led to a crackdown by the state and dozens of people were imprisoned, most notably the then-head of the Sicilian Mafia, Salvatore “Toto” Riina. However, the man who is believed to have taken over, Bernardo Provenzano, has been on the run for more than 40 years and remains at large.

The names of those commemorated today will be engraved on a memorial stone to be placed on the grounds of a Rome villa confiscated from a local mobster, according to Il Messaggero.