Forty-four years have passed since the massacre at the Bologna station. Eighty-five dead, two hundred injured.

The massacre at the Bologna station is an ever-open wound, a pain that never goes away. It was August 2, 1980, and hundreds of people were on holiday that day or passing through the railway junction. The attack was committed on Saturday, August 2, at 10.25 am at the Bologna Centrale railway station. The bomb, a time bomb, exploded in the second-class waiting room. It was in an abandoned suitcase: 23 kg of explosives, a mixture of 5 kg of TNT and T4 called Compound B, enhanced by 18 kg of gelatine.

The explosion caused the collapse of the West wing of the building. Also, it hit the Adria Express train 13534 Ancona-Basel, which was parked on the first track, destroying approximately 30 meters of shelter and the taxi rank in front of the station. The same people present at the station were the first to assist by extracting bodies from the rubble. The right lane of the ring roads of the historic centre of Bologna was reserved for ambulances and emergency vehicles. Buses were also used to transport the many injured people, in particular, that of line 37 (which remained one of the symbols of the massacre), cars, and taxis. Doctors and nurses were asked to return to duty. Car 4030 of the line went back and forth as a hearse from the station to the forensic medicine institute.

It is the most severe terrorist act to have occurred in Italy after the Second World War. Eighty-five died, and two hundred were injured. A total of 7 children lost their lives. The youngest of the victims, Angela Fresu, was three years old, and her mother Maria, the body torn apart by the explosion, was never found; the oldest, 86 years old, Antonio Montanari.

The prosecutor’s office of Bologna considers Licio Gelli, Umberto Ortolani, Federico UD’AmatoD’Amato and Mario Tedeschi to be the instigators, financiers or organisers of the terrorist action  All four are dead  The Prosecutor’s Office has concluded that the Venerable of the Masonic Lodge P2, who died in 2015, was behind the massacre and was connected to deviant state apparatus to cover up and divert the investigations  According to the investigators, the neo-fascists acted on the instructions of Licio Gelli and the other cited  In April 2022, the first-degree sentence of the so-called trial of the pri cipals  Life imprisonment for the former Avanguardia Nazionale militant Paolo Bellini, considered among the material executors of the massacre in competition with the three NAR militants Valerio Fioravanti, Francesca Mambro and Luigi Ciavardini, already definitively convicted, and with the former NAR Gilberto Cavallini, convicted for now only in the first I stance  The former captain of the Carabinieri Piergiorgio Segatel was sentenced to 6 years for misdirection, as requested by the prosecution, and four years for Domenico Catracchia, the former administrator of condominiums via Gradoli in Rome, accused of giving false information to prosecutors.

The Assize Court of Appeal of Bologna confirmed the first-degree conviction, within the trial of the instigators, for the fifth man of the massacre, Paolo Bellini, on June 8une, 2024. Bellini says he is innocent, but against him, there is the video of a German tourist in which he was recognised by his ex-wife Maurizia Bonini, who also denied the alibi provided to her husband: he was not with her and the children at mother’s in Rimini at 9 in the morning.

The Court also confirmed other sentences: six years for misleading the former Carabinieri captain Piergiorgio Segatel and four years for false information to the prosecutor of Domenico Catracchia, former administrator of condominiums via Gradoli n Rome. Former Sisde general Quintino Spella died. During the first instance, accused of misdirection.

Like every year, we remember the massacre at the station and commemorate the victims of the most severe attack in history.

Bologna remembers the victims of the massacre at Bologna station with a permanent installation: eighty-five cobblestones of memory along the route from Piazza del Nettuno to Piazza Md’Oroi d’Oro Inspired by the stumbling blocks of the German artist Gunter Demnig, they each bear the name and age of one of the i “times “Bologna does not” forget” is the writing that has stood out since yesterday on the large banner displayed at Pd’Accursioccursio and on one of the Towers of the Emilia-Romagna Region today’s celebrations.

President Irene Priolo will represent the Emilia-Romagna Region at the ceremony commemorating the massacre  At 8.20, he will be present, together with the mayor of Bologna, Matteo Lepore, and the Minister of the Interior, Matteo Piantedosi, at the meeting with the families of the victims in the courtyard of honour of Pd’Azzo d’A cursio  He will follow the procession to Piazza Medaglie gold for the intervention of the president of the Victims’ Association, Paolo Bolognesi, the triple whistle of the train and the minute of silence in memory of the victims  The president will conclude her participation by laying wreaths in front of the memorial dedicated to Silver Sirotti.

At 11.30 am, the councillor for health policies, Raffele Donini, will participate in the wreath-laying ceremony in memory of the taxi drivers who died on August 2, 1980, at the Co.Ta.Bo heads arteries in via Stalingrado.

At 11.35, the vice-president of the Legislative Assembly, Silvia Zamboni, will board the special train to San Benedetto Val di Sambro, where the victims of the attacks on the Italicus train and the Rapido 904 will be commemorated.

At 9.15 pm, the Councilor for Culture, Mauro Felicori, will participate in the evening concert in Piazza Maggiore  The Teatro Comunale di Bologna orchestra will perform the winning pieces “f the “2” Agosto” international composition competition, now in its 30th edition and broadcast live on Rai5 and Rai Radio3.