Posada, reported missing in war: after 80 years the body of Francesco Demuru returns home

He was among the very long lines of war casualties of whom nothing more was heard for many decades. Now, however, 80 years after his death, for Francesco Demuru, a Posada native born in 1924, killed by Tito's partisans during the Second World War, the time has come to return to his native land. His remains, identified a few months ago thanks to a DNA test, will return to an urn on December 15th to be buried permanently in the cemetery of the coastal town of Alta Baronia. For the occasion, the parish priest of Posada, Don Carlo Sedda, will celebrate a memorial mass. Francesco Demuru's story also echoes that of millions of other people who, during the greatest war conflict in history, were never able to embrace their loved ones again, ending their existence in a grave without a name. Massacres told by eyewitnesses but ignored for years for ideological reasons. "My father Michele had learned through back channels that my uncle had died on board a sunken ship," says Maria Antonietta, Francesco's niece, with great emotion. "The official documents listed him as missing since November 16, 1944, when nothing more was heard of him." The body of the Baroniese marine was found in 2019 in Ossero, Croatia, together with that of 27 other people who had been murdered on April 22, 1945, five months after being captured as prisoners of war by Tito's partisans. A recovery operation conducted by Onor Caduti of the Ministry of Defense in collaboration with the Croatian authorities and a group of researchers from Zagreb. "Our dream of being able to have my uncle's body back took hold thanks to my nephew Dennis Lai," says Maria Antonietta Demuru, "and his continuous research. Having read something about the Ossero massacre, he put me in touch with Mr. Riccardo Maculan, a former carabiniere from Verona who is part of Onor Caduti, with whom we started a close correspondence that helped us get to the bottom of this dramatic story". The protagonists who helped Francesco Demuru's family solve the case of identifying his body were many, such as the journalist Fausto Biloslavo "he also helped us a lot to bring out the true fate of my uncle and his companions". In total, there are 14 bodies that have finally been given a name. All marines of the X MAS who, rescued from the oblivion of the mass graves in that distant land, were repatriated and taken to the Overseas War Memorial in Bari, where DNA comparison tests were subsequently started with the closest relatives to trace their personal details. Francesco Demuru, after being declared fit for the 28-month military service, volunteered for the army on June 19, 1943 in La Maddalena. From there he was transferred to Mariscuole in Venice, captured by the Germans, deported to Germany and locked up in the Goertz concentration camp. In July 1944, he returned to Venice and was hospitalized for health problems for about 4 months, and then once discharged he was reassigned to Maridest Venice. It was November 16, 1944 when nothing more was heard of him, thus being declared missing. In truth, he ended up in the hands of Tito's men who, after holding him as a prisoner for 5 months, handed him over to the army along with his companions. The rest is recent history and on December 13, his body will finally be able to rest in peace in the Posada cemetery. "For us it is an unexpected gift also in memory of my father and my grandmother - says Mariantonietta Demuru, also speaking for the other grandchildren -. They had lived in the pain of having lost a brother and a missing son". Her son Matteo opened a restaurant that he named after his uncle who fell in the war: Frade (acronym for Francesco Demuru) which he transformed into Frade Meu (my brother).