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No such thing as A and B grade victims - Crosetto

'State does not forget,' says defence minister of Nassiriya dead

Redazione Ansa

(ANSA) - ROME, NOV 12 - November 12 is a day of remembrance and must not be sullied by making a classification of the dead, Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said on Sunday.
    "Even after 20 years, the State does not forget the people who have served it," said the minister, referring to the victims of the November 12, 2003 bombing at the Italian Nassiriya military base in Iraq in which 28 people including 19 Italians - 17 military personnel and two civilians - died.
    "Today is a time of remembrance, it is not right to make a classification of the dead. There is no such thing as A and B grade victims," he continued, responding indirectly to relatives of the Nassiriya victims who recently called for their dead loved ones to be awarded the gold medal of military valour.
    "The moment of remembrance must not be sullied.
    "Today we are commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Nassiriya deaths, but we are (also) remembering all the fallen, both civilian and military," said Crosetto after a Mass celebrated in the Roman Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli in suffrage of the military and civilians who died in international peace missions.
    Last Monday Marco Intravaia, son of Vice Brigadiere Domenico Intravaia, one of the soldiers killed in the Nassiriya attack, appealed to President Sergio Mattarella, Premier Giorgia Meloni and Crosetto to grant the fallen of Nassiriya the gold medal for military valour in their memory.
    "November 12 marks the 20th anniversary of the Nassiriya attack, the biggest massacre of Italian soldiers since the second world war," said Intravaia.
    "On this occasion, we would have expected a different level of sensitivity to what my father and the other victims did for the State, by deciding to remain in Iraq despite the high risk they were exposed to, a choice they paid for with their lives," he continued. (ANSA).
   

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