(February 15, 2017) Valencia paid tribute to the victims of the Italian bombing on the city and the coast of eastern Spain in 1937. The ceremony, in the Salón de Plenos dell'Ayuntamiento of Valencia, in the presence of the mayor Joan Ribó, was attended by the Italian Ambassador in Spain, Stefano Sannino. "Military actions against the civilian population constitute an abhorrent, barbaric act, and that's what happened in Valencia eighty years ago - said Sannino -. I join all those present in the wish for a better, fairer, stronger, more integrated, democratic Europe that never again will allow the attack on unarmed civilian by a brutal dictatorship". 80 years ago, on the night of February 14, Valencia, capital of the Spanish Republic, underwent the first naval bombardment. Since that night the entire eastern coast was the subject of an international aggression, without any prior declaration of war, with the use of Italian means and military personnel, hitting not only military-strategic targets but also civilian targets. The ceremony is the latest in a series of acts and activities organized as part of "Valencia, Herida Abierta", the campaign promoted by the sociocultural association Espai Italia (which from 2013 promotes Italian culture in Spain and in the Valencian Community) and by Grupo de recuperación de la memoria histórica coordinated by Matías Alonso. Filippo Carcassola, president of Espai Italia, in his speech said that the goal of the campaign on the bombing is to "close a wound, opened for too long" and that "the presence of the Italian Ambassador is a significant gesture of reconciliation, a gesture of peace ". "This is an act of memory and remembrance - said the mayor of Valencia - but it is also a gesture of reconciliation." (Red)

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The commemoration was attended by Federico Mayor Zaragoza, former Director General of UNESCO and President of the Fundación Cultura de Paz, Ferran Puchades, Secretario Autonomico de Justicia, Administración Pública, Reformas Democráticas y Libertades Públicas representing the President of the Generalitat Valenciana Ximo Puig, and Vicent Gil Edo Secretario General de la Federación Valenciana de Municipios y Provincias representing all the mayors of the Comunidad Valenciana.