"Check Point Pasta, Mogadishu 1993-2023" (Panel introduction)

"Check Point Pasta, Mogadishu 1993-2023"
The photographic exhibition "Check Point Pasta, Mogadishu 1993-2023", has been promoted by the Chief of Staff of the Army - and President of the Fondazione Ente Editoriale per l'Esercito - to commemorate, thirty years after those events, the fallen soldiers Pasquale BACCARO, Andrea MILLEVOI and Stefano PAOLICCHI all decorated with the Gold Medal for Military Valor (MOVM) and the many wounded soldiers, including Gianfranco Paglia, also decorated with the Gold Medal for Military Valor, the highest recognition that Italy awards for acts of valour.

The photographic exhibition provides a complete picture of the Somali situation between 1992-1994 together with the UN interventions aimed to provide stability and security in the area; although focused on the events that led to the firefight at Check Point Pasta, it also underlines the humanitarian activities carried out in favor of the Somali population; it covers also a brief excursus of the missions of the Italian Army from the post-war time to present days, providing the image of an Army in constant and concrete service to the country as well as in defense of international peace and security. The Army is represented as a reliable, effective military instrument capable of dealing with the needs of the country and the multiple challenges that characterize the heterogeneous scenarios of the so-called "Enlarged Mediterranean", an area of primary national strategic interest.