Father Luigi Ciotti, founder of Libera, the main association in Italy involved in recovering goods stolen by the Mafia, organized a remembrance day for victims in the southern town of Locri.

Among the families of the victims present was Italian President Sergio Mattarella who lost his brother Piersanti to mob violence.

“Men and women of the Mafia, tell us at least where you have buried the victims of these families who have never had the chance to cry over their graves,” Ciotti said in a speech broadcast on Italian television, denouncing the country's “Mafia plague”.

Mattarella noted that “Italy has made some progress in the fight against the Mafia, but it must not stop.”

“As Giovanni Falcone said, 'The fight against the mafia can't stop in one room, it must include the whole building,” the president added, quoting the famous anti-Mafia judge who was assassinated by the Sicilian mob in 1992.

He also spoke about the need to eliminate “complicity” with the mafia which he called “fertile ground for corruption”.

Currently dozens of Rome politicians and business figures are on trial in a case known as Mafia Capitale while a recent report by the national unit that fights organized crime said 904 people were arrested on corruption charges in the first half of 2016.