Murder of Italian journalist in Somalia turns 30

Italian authorities recalled this Wednesday (20) the deaths of journalist Ilaria Alpi and her operator Miran Hrovatin in Somalia, a case that completed 30 years.

“Their memory is present as in the dramatic days when the terrible news from Mogadishu reached our country. They were valuable journalists, searching in Somalia for verifications and confirmations on a tip that could have revealed despicable trafficking”, said the president, Sergio Mattarella .

“A price paid for the exercise of a right, the right to information, which is an essential safeguard for everyone’s freedom and a pillar on which democratic life rests. The killers and those who ordered them still remain nameless and faceless after investigations, deviations, retractions, and processes that led nowhere”, he added.

“It is a wound that affects the entire society. Institutions know that one can never give up in the search for truth. The value of the autonomy of the free press is under attack in many parts of the world. Many journalists pay with their lives for their independence from the powers, their search for the truth”, said the Italian president.

“The memory of Alpi and Hrovatin is also a commitment, to removing obstacles to freedom of information, wherever they appear,” he said.

Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also lamented: “Ilaria Alpi is one of the women I mentioned in my inauguration speech, her courage is the courage of Italian women and we owe her thanks, in particular women.”

Ilaria Alpi was 33 years old and was a journalist for RAI, covering wars and the ills of women’s condition around the world.

Trained in Arabic, she also had experience reporting from Somalia. When she was killed in 1994, she was investigating the trafficking of toxic waste. .