(ANSA) - Italy on Saturday commemorated a 2003 attack on its peacekeeping contingent in southern Iraq which caused the nation's heaviest military losses since World War II.
At a ceremony in Rome, President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi presented civilian honours to the families of the 19 Italians killed in the bombing of Carabinieri police headquarters in Nassiriya exactly two years ago.
Watched by ministers, dignitaries and politicians of different stripes, he also gave medals to three Carabinieri peacekeepers who survived the attack despite sustaining severe injuries.
The Nassiriya bombing left an "indelible mark on the collective memory" of Italians, Defence Chief of Staff Gianpaolo Di Paola said during his address and tribute. Defence Minister Antonio Martino, who was also present at the Vittoriano monument in central Rome, defined November 12, 2003 as "one of the saddest days in the history of the (Italian) Republic".
The attack happened in the morning when two cars loaded with explosives drove at high speed into the building hosting the headquarters of the Carabinieri contingent. The blasts tore the front off the building and left huge craters in the ground. The death toll was 27: 12 Carabinieri, five soldiers, two Italian civilians and nine Iraqis. Ciampi gave no address, although he spent several minutes with the families of the victims, embracing some and shaking hands with others.
Martino said Ciampi's decision to award civilian honours showed how highly the country valued the sacrifice, adding that it had not been fruitless.
"I humbly ask all Italians, and above all the relatives of those who died in Nassiriya, to look at the hope that is germinating in Iraq," he said.
Deputy Premier Gianfranco Fini, who is also foreign minister, also paid tribute separately to the Nassiriya dead, calling them "courageous men". "Without rhetoric, I want to say that their sacrifice
has not been in vain. Iraq is moving towards democracy slowly and painfully, but with definitive progress."
Alongside the solemnity at the Vittoriano monument, there were also a few moments of tension, such as when the companion of one of the civilian victims was refused entry into the award ceremony. There was also a vague hint of polemic in the words of a Carabinieri widow, who said she thought the victims deserved military honours, as well as civilian ones.
At the same time as Ciampi was commemorating the dead in Rome, another ceremony took place in Milan, led by House Speaker Pierferdinando Casini.
