There is no precise estimate of the participants in the PerugiAssisi March yet but it is becoming clear how the most popular in recent years and perhaps ever this edition organized to ask for peace in Palestine, Ukraine and in all the other territories tormented by wars. In fact, there are tens of thousands of people participating or crowded along the route. It’s a PerugiAssisi march “that hasn’t been seen since 2001 when there was a few days after the invasion of Afghanistan following the attack on the Twin Towers” today. This was said by Flavio Lotti, long-time organizer of the event, interviewed by ANSA. “It is a river of people, 14 uninterrupted kilometers from Perugia to Assisi” he added. “All those who love peace can only be happy with this participation” underlined Lotti.
Another feature of the 2025 march is the return of political leaders who hadn’t seen each other for years. In fact, there are the secretaries of the Democratic Party Elly Schlein and of the Italian Left, Nicola Fratoianni and the leader of the M5s Giuseppe Conte. Also at PerugiAssisi was the national secretary of the CGIL Maurizio Landini.
Many people gathered in Santa Maria degli Angeli where the first Peace March dedicated to children will take place.
The arrival of the head of the procession in Assisi is expected around 3pm. Many behind the large banner with the writing “Fraternity”, with a large drape in the colors of the rainbow and Palestine.
“It is the day in which many women and men take on the responsibility of doing something for peace”: the president of the Perugia-Assisi Foundation Flavio Lotti spoke thus of the march starting from the Umbrian capital. “Walking is perhaps a small thing but very important. It will help us rediscover the beauty of brotherhood” he added.
“An extraordinary participation today in the Perugia Assisi peace march because Italy is a country that repudiates war, it is written in our Constitution. And therefore we continue to mobilize for peace”, he said the secretary of the Democratic Party Elly Schlein. “Peace for the Palestinians, which means – he continued – full recognition of the State of Palestine and an end to the illegal occupation in the West Bank; peace for the Ukrainians, a just peace for all those peoples who are involved in over 50 terrible conflicts in the world”.
“We are at the peace march because the blue flag of Europe has been dyed military green”, said the leader of the 5 Star Movement Giuseppe Conte. “Our Government plans increases in military spending of over 20 billion over the three-year period while families and businesses in Italy are doing very badly” he added.
“It’s a huge march, I’ve been doing them all for many years and a participation like this, frankly, is difficult to remember,” he said. Nicola Fratoianni of Avs speaking with journalists on the sidelines of the Perugia Assisi march. “This march has a particular meaning because there is a genocide in Gaza, because war returns as an ordinary tool for conflict resolution, because we are faced with a crazy race for rearmament and armaments. This splendid march in the name of the culture of life, against the culture of death is the right place to be”.
“The enormous participation in the March today is a sign that there is a people of peace who reject the rearmament carried out by the Meloni government in obedience to Trump and who do not want Italy to continue to be an accomplice of Netanyahu”. As the national secretary of the Communist Refoundation Party Maurizio Acerbo. “We demand the release of Marwan Barghouti, the Palestinian Mandela, and the withdrawal of Israel and its settlers from the occupied Palestinian territories. We must stop the escalation of the conflict with Russia before it is too late. Our tax money should be spent on healthcare, not on weapons”, adds Acerbo.
The President of the Umbria Region, Stefania Proietti, underlined how the PerugiAssisi takes place “in the name of the ideals of Aldo Capitini and Saint Francis who saw the Holy Land and Bethlehem as the other Assisi and the other Umbria”. “This must be the sum of all those extraordinary squares that have made a decisive contribution to a first step towards peace in Palestine” he added.
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