Hundreds events held in Italy to remember innocent victims of mafia

ROME, March 21 (Xinhua) -- Hundreds of events were held in Italy on Wednesday to mark this year's national day of remembrance for innocent victims of mafia.

Some 40,000 people gathered in the southern city of Foggia for a key march organized by Italy's largest anti-mafia association Libera, while similar rallies took place in many other cities across the country.

In the Italian capital, several hundreds of high school students followed the celebration in the central and multi-ethnic Piazza Vittorio, holding anti-mafia banners and listening to anti-mafia testimonies.

The March 21 is not a national holiday in Italy, and schools or public offices do not close. Yet, younger generations made the most of the crowd following the event nationwide.

Every initiative was marked by what was by now a well-established ritual: demonstrators listened silently as the names of 950 innocent people killed by Italy's mafia groups were read aloud from the stage, one by one. Then, speeches and debates would follow. Families of the victims led the rallies in many cases.

"Some 70 percent of the victims' relatives do not know the truth yet," priest Luigi Ciotti, founder of Libera and a prominent anti-mafia figure, remarked in Foggia.

"We are here to give courage, and to boost the lively energies of this society... Since we do not forget that the (mafia) code of silence kills truth and hope equally," he told the crowd.

Lying in the southeast Pulia region, Foggia is under the influence of the so-called "Sacra Corona Unita" mob. This group is however considered of minor relevance, if compared to Italy's three traditional mafia groups: Calabrian 'Ndrangheta, Cosa Nostra in Sicily, and Naples-based Camorra.

Currently, 'Ndrangheta is seen as the richest and the most dangerous, with its global business focused on drug trafficking, waste trafficking, and money laundering, and its ability to infiltrate the legal economy.

Along with street rallies, several events aimed at building anti-mafia awareness were held in schools, public libraries, and cultural places on Wednesday.

Organized by Libera association since 1996, the day of remembrance for mafia victims was recognized as a national recurrence by a law of the Italian parliament last year. Enditem