As is customary every year, the three journalists from Rai Trieste killed in Mostar 25 years ago were commemorated in Mostar. Marco Luchetta, Dario D’Angelo and Alessio Ota, were killed by a grenade on 28 January 1994, while they were recording a special coverage on the children who had died in the war. The ceremony was attended by the Mayor of Mostar, Ljubo Beli, and by the heads of the OSCE Offices in Mostar and of the European Delegation, at the presence of a large number of media representatives and journalists.
After a minute of prayer, the Italian Ambassador in Sarajevo, Nicola Minasi, laid a wreath of lowers in front of the plaque placed in remembrance of the reporters in the place where they were attacked. Flowers were also laid by many citizens and by the children of the ‘Djeiji dom Mostar’ orphanage, who crowded the event despite the pouring rain, confirming that the local population still harbours the sacrifice of the three Italians in their memory. In his brief address, the Ambassador emphasised the sacrifice of the three men who died in order to narrate the senselessness of war and the suffering of the youngest, the first innocent victims of war.
There was also a large attendance of professors and students of the city’s two universities: the Croatian Sveuciliste and the Bosnian Dzemal Bijedic. Present was also the mother of the child that the reporters were interviewing when the grenade exploded, and who they saved by protecting him from the shrapnel with their bodies.
The ceremony was held concomitantly to a commemoration ceremony organised in Trieste.