Moby Prince , 33 years later. Time passes but it does not erase the wounds of the massacre. And Birori , the town of one of the 140 victims, has not forgotten Gianfranco Campus , a fellow villager, one of the 140 crosses left by the maritime disaster. A commemorative ceremony took place in the town today, with various initiatives.
At 10.30 am the Holy Mass at the parish church of Sant'Andrea, in memory of the victims. At 11.30 the procession was held from the parish church to the Birori cemetery, with the placing of a rose cushion on Campus' tomb and reading of the names of the dead. Furthermore, from this year, also thanks to the motion presented by the city councilor Orazio Culeddu and then with resolution of the City Council n.22 of 07/31/2023, city mourning will be declared. The motion has the intent and purpose of implementing a whole series of commitments and actions aimed at expressing full and maximum support for all the families of the victims, for the 10 Aprile and 140 associations, who have been fighting for years, with commitment, suffering and sacrifice, to arrive at the truth.
«Today they must be helped with even more determination and vigor – underlined Culeddu – since, paradoxically, although there is very little left to close the circle, they suffered yet another blow on 12 December 2023, with the negative sentence of the Court of Appeal of Florence, regarding the civil case. We are still awaiting the outcome of the work carried out by the Livorno Prosecutor's Office, but nothing has yet transpired. The help and closeness is important and fundamental because, in addition to being a civil and moral duty, it is also institutional, and we too, as Administrators, in our small way, are an integral part of it. Without distinction, everyone must have greater awareness of the historical truth of this unpunished massacre, even today, 33 years later, which could have already been written about a long time ago. The 140 innocent victims invoke Truth and Justice from above, so that, despite themselves, they can find peace."
«One of these – explained the councilor – was our fellow villager, a young carabiniere, at the time of the events, working at the Buti barracks, he would have turned 21 in the month following the massacre. He returned to Birori, for a 10-day leave, with the desire to see his elderly parents, relatives and friends again. He was an only child and this made his death more dramatic for his father, for his mother, and for those who loved him." On the occasion of the anniversary, ceremonies were also held in Livorno.
