The Rai journalist has died Franco Di Mare. The family announced it in a statement.
«Embraced by the love of his wife, daughter, sisters and brother and by the affection of his closest friends», we read, «Franco Di Mare passed away today».
Sent for years to the “hottest” areas of the planet, Di Mare was 68 years old and had mesothelioma.
Di Mare announced his illness last April 28, with an interview with Corriere and, live, in What’s the weather likewith whom he also spoke about his book, released a few days ago (“Le parole per dirlo”, Sem-Feltrinelli: “Il mio testamento”, he had defined it).
The announcement: «I have cancer, one of the worst»
«I have cancer“, He said. «Today we take care of ourselves and often recover. Not from this one. It doesn’t go away, at most you can slow it down, but it stays there and he’s one of the baddest”. Di Mare identified the cause of the mesothelioma that had affected him as having «been in the Balkans for a long time, among depleted uranium bullets, hyper-fast, hyper-destructive, capable of knocking down a building. Each explosion released infinite particles of asbestos into the air. One was enough. Six thousand times lighter than a hair. Maybe I met her in Sarajevo, in July 1992, my first mission. Or the last one, in 2000, who knows. I couldn’t know it, but I had breathed death. The incubation period can last up to 30 years. Here we are”.
«The disease», he continued to explain, «was contained in the pleura, apart from two small points where it was perforated. And from there, damn it, the tumor came out. Decortication gave me two years of life. But then, yesand months ago, there was a recurrence. She presented herself the same way. A very sharp pang. This time to the left. I breathe with a third of my lung capacity.”
The controversy with Rai
A reason of great bitterness, for Di Mare, was represented by the treatment received by Rai: «When I got ill I asked to have the service record, with the list of missions, to support the diagnosis. I sent at least 10 emails, from the CEO to the head of personnel. No reply. With some I had coffee every morning. I was a manager like them, interim director of Raitre. I texted them on my cell phone, calling them by name: “I have a terminal illness.” They ignored me. Disgusting, they should be ashamed. Furthermore, the building on Viale Mazzini is full of asbestos. In a whisper, they advise you against hanging paintings on the wall.”
“I’m a lucky man”
Despite everything, however, he said he was doing «a beautiful life. I’m with the people I love. My dear sisters. I am protected and looked after, I feel like a little sultan. We always fixate on our first love – mine, in high school, was a dancer at San Carlo – but the most important is the last one, which accompanies you in the final steps. For me it is Giulia. We have been together for eight years. There is more than 30 differences between us, before it was less noticeable.” Di Mare married Giulia two days before his death.
And again, friends: «We love each other. They come for dinner. The other evening I cooked linguine in bread sauce with baby squid. I’m very hungry, with all the cortisone I take. The oncologists allowed me a glass of red wine in the evening.”
His work is very long and full of important passages journalistic career: joined Rai in 1991 in the foreign editorial office of Tg2, became special correspondent in 1995; In 2002 he moved to Tg1, where he covered most of the conflicts of the last twenty years – Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, Mozambique, Algeria, Albania, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Rwanda, the first and second wars of
Gulf, Afghanistan, East Timor, Middle East and Latin America. In 2003 he became a television presenter on Rai 1, in 2019 he became deputy director of Rai1, in May 2020 he took over the management of Rai3, the network on which he landed Che tempo che fa di Fabio Fazio. And Fazio himself was among the first to comment on Di Mare’s death: «I knew like everyone else that it would have to happen soon. But then every time something like this happens we are surprised and we are never ready.”
«On July 28th I will turn 69», concluded Di Mare, «but I don’t know if I’ll get there. Maybe yes. I’m calm, I’m not afraid. The idea of suffering scares me, but I have gone to a dozen funerals of colleagues younger than me. And I’m miraculously alive. During a gang shootout in Albania, a bullet passed through the back of my neck. I didn’t die because I bent down to get a battery in my bag. I consider myself a lucky man».
Article being updated…
