Franco Di Mare, the mission to Sarajevo in 1992 among the depleted uranium bullets. «So I got mesothelioma»

When in July 1992, Franco Di MareRAI’s young war correspondent, goes to Sarajevo, realize a professional dream. He cannot know that thirty years later he will be asked for the bill, he will be diagnosed with a ruthless disease, mesothelioma, a tumor that affects the lungs probably caused by what he breathed in that service (and in many others on war scenarios ). He cannot know that thirty years later he will feel betrayed by Rai itself. Last Sunday, as a guest of Fabio Fazio on La 9, where he appeared with an automatic respirator, he said: «This very bad tumor is caught because you breathe in asbestos particles without knowing it and once released into the air the fiber has a shelf life very long.” Di Mare recalls that in Sarajevo, as well as in the other conflicts that he covered for Rai, i depleted uranium shells they caused explosions that released asbestos particles into the air.

Franco Di Mare and the tumor, what happened with Rai: Sergio and Rossi only learned about it yesterday. The case of the practice stops at Inail

INGRATITUDE

The former director of Rai3 felt abandoned by the company for which he worked from 1991 to 2021. Nobody answers his phone anymore: «I understand that there are union and legal reasons, I was asking for the service record, the list of places where I have been. I can’t understand the absence on a human level: people I used to address have denied each other on the phone. I find only one adjective: it is repugnant.” The story of Franco Di Mare is that of a 68 year old person who says: «I have had a beautiful life»; but it is also a practice in the offices of Inail (National Institute for Insurance of Accidents at Work), which must certify the causal link between the missions as a correspondent and the mesothelioma diagnosed in 2021. Rai’s first official response yesterday. We read in a note: «The CEO of Rai Roberto Sergio and the CEO Giampaolo Rossi only became aware of the dramatic story of Franco Di Mare on Sunday evening, to whom they express all their human closeness and assure their willingness to do everything everything possible to allow the journalist to reconstruct what he requested”.

Di Mare’s reference is to those who preceded Sergio and Rossi. Fabrizio Salini was CEO and general director of Rai from 27 July 2018 to 16 July 2021; Carlo Fuortes was CEO of Rai between 16 July 2021 and 8 May 2023. Di Mare was diagnosed with the disease in 2021 and retired that year. He asks for the service record, which certifies the list of missions sent, with which to make the request for damages. In the handover between Salini and Fuortes, the hypothesis of a transaction also stops because the case must be examined by INAIL which must express its opinion on the causal link. The thesis circulating in the Rai offices says: a response to the settlement request cannot be given without the INAIL ruling, otherwise any agreement will cause the possibility of financial damage to fall on the Rai managers. Yesterday there were several certificates of solidarity with Di Mare. For example by the mayor of the city where he was born, Naples. Gaetano Manfredi wrote on X: «What happened to our friend and extraordinary journalist Franco Di Mare, his words, his great dignity, touch the heart. From Naples all the warmth and closeness that he deserves.” And then Sandro Ruotolo, another well-known face of Rai journalism, now head of Information and Culture in the PD secretariat: «Dear Franco Di Mare, you who have been in theaters of war for Rai, have breathed a lot of asbestos. Your complaint about how Rai left you alone is without appeal.”

PRECEDENTS

“At the moment there are over 8,500 sick soldiers and almost a thousand deaths from diseases linked to exposure to depleted uranium” he says Domenico Leggiero, president of the Military Observatory which follows soldiers who fell ill on missions in the Balkans. The lawyer Angelo Fiore Tartaglia has assisted from a legal point of view over 400 soldiers who have been diagnosed with cancer. «Painful stories – he tells us – also because at least 150 of those 400 died. Just in recent days we have had a new ruling from the labor court for a helicopter pilot who was in contact with both asbestos and uranium. He was recognized as a victim of duty because the causal link with the illness that unfortunately led to his death was demonstrated. The first cases I followed date back to 2009-2010, for conflicts in the Balkans, but also in Iraq, Somalia, and beyond. In fact, there are two paths to compensation for damages. One is civil. The other is instead related to the recognition of the benefits of being a victim of duty.”

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Read the full article at
The messenger