ROME

Italy remembered its COVID-19 victims Thursday, marking the anniversary of one of the most haunting moments of the pandemic when army trucks were forced to line up in the northern city of Bergamo to transfer coffins from full cemeteries and crematoria.

Prime Minister Mario Draghi visited Bergamo – one of the areas hardest hit by the pandemic – to commemorate the dead, after calling a national day of mourning for all Italian victims.

A short ceremony was held at Bergamo’s cemetery, where national and local authorities inaugurated a forest named in honor of the more than 100,000 victims in Italy – the first country in Europe overwhelmed by the pandemic.

“This place is a symbol of the pain of an entire nation,” Draghi said, stressing that he is close to the Italian public in a moment of both “suffering and hope.”

“We decided to honor the victims with a work that is alive, with a monument that breathes,” Bergamo Mayor Giorgio Gori told the small gathering, surrounded by the first 100 freshly planted saplings and accompanied by the music of jazz musician Paolo Fresu.

The painful anniversary came as much of Italy moves into a new almost-full lockdown, with schools and businesses forced to close again, amid a new surge of infections and worries that the country’s vaccination campaign is moving too slowly.

Vaccinations were recently hit by new delays due to the temporary suspension of AstraZeneca doses, pending a review from the European Medicines Agency (EMA), after a few cases of adverse reaction.

Draghi pledged in Bergamo that – whatever the European Medicines Agency decides – Italy will continue to accelerate its vaccination campaign and that planned increases in deliveries “will help compensate for the delays by pharmaceutical firms.”

So far, Italy’s official toll stands at more than 103,000 – the sixth-highest in the world and the second-highest in Europe after the UK – with hundreds of more deaths registered every day.

The Draghi government is under pressure to speed up the vaccination campaign – to reach herd immunity by the end of the summer – while finding new ways to support citizens and businesses hit hard by the economic crisis.