On Mount Zec near Fojnica, on September 3, 2025, an annual memorial was held in memory of the four Italian pilots who died, the crew of the G-222 military transport aircraft. The aircraft was transporting humanitarian aid from Split to Sarajevo as part of the official UNHCR operation "Provide Promise", the longest humanitarian air mission in the post-Cold War period. The aircraft was hit by two surface-to-air missiles on September 3, 1992. It has not been officially confirmed who fired the missiles.
Major Marco Betti, Lieutenant Marco Rigliaco, Sergeant Giuseppe Buttaglieri and Sergeant Giuliano Velardi lost their lives, and were posthumously awarded the Gold Medal for Military Merit in their homeland – Italy. The ceremony, chaired by the Italian Ambassador to Sarajevo, Castellani, assisted by the Italian staff of the EUFOR-Althea Mission, was attended by representatives of the Armed Forces of BiH, the Municipality of Fojnica, the police forces and members of the UGIP “Rino Zandonai” from Tuzla. The delegations laid flowers and wreaths at the memorial at the site where the Italian plane crashed. The monument with the message “Burn so that others may live” reminds us that humanity and solidarity often come at the cost of human life.
