Italy celebrates every 8 August the Day of the Sacrifice of Italian Workers in the World. It has been established to pay hommage and promote the social, cultural and economic contribution of the Italian workers abroad and commemorate the sacrifice of those who died.
The date has been chosen to remember the disaster of Marcinelle. On August 8, 1956, in the coal mine of “Bois du Cazier” in Marcinelle, an industrial settlement near Charleroi, in Belgium, 262 miners died. 136 were Italians, mostly from Abruzzo, Calabria, Campania, Emilia-Romagna, Friuli, Lombardia, Marche, Molise, Puglia, Sicilia, Toscana, Trentino e Veneto. 40 victims alone were from the little village of Manoppello, near Chieti, in Abruzzo.
Today, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Relations Enzo Moavero Milanesi has participated in the official commemoration in Marcinelle. Here is the text of his intervention.
