Italy on Thursday commemorates the victims of the Foibe mass killings in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Istria and Dalmatia by Tito's partisans, both during and after world war two. The massacres were committed mainly against the local ethnic Italian population by Yugoslav communists who occupied the Istrian peninsula during the last two years of the war.
 
Italy's annual Giorno del Ricordo will be marked with an official ceremony in Palazzo Madama at 16.00, with speeches by senate president Maria Elisabetta Casellati, followed by the speaker of the chamber of deputies Roberto Fico and concluded with an address by prime minister Mario Draghi. The ceremony, to be broadcast live on state television, will be attended by the newly re-elected Italian president Sergio Mattarella.