Dionis Izbas does not know his father. He was almost three when his father died in the Nistru armed conflict. He yet knows that his father was a real hero. On March 2, he came to remember the heroes killed in that war together with their parents, brothers, children, comrades-in-arms. After the participants laid flowers at the monument to Ruler Stephan the Great and Holy, they went on a march to the Memorial Complex “Eternity” to take part in a commemoration meeting there, IPN reports.

For Virgiliu Slobotniuc, March 2 is also a tragic day. He was 19 when he went to war. He took part in the very first battles and now remembers his comrades who didn’t return home with great pain. “Filea Lupascu, who was 21, worked in the police. He went to take food and... we then found him with his arms broken. There were many lads who didn’t return,” he said. 

Veterans and members of the families of those killed in battle said they will never forget these heroes and called on the young generation to respect the country and not to leave it. They noted the authorities should not remember them only on March 2, but also in the course of the year.

On Memory Day, Speaker of Parliament Andrian Candu addressed the parents who lost their children in war 25 years ago. “Only owing to the sacrifice made then, in 1992, do we now have power to continue to struggle for the country’s reunification,” he stated.

In his message to veterans and relatives of those killed, Prime Minister Pavel Filip said March 2 should be a day of national unity. “It is the day when we must forget about the differences that separate us and remember the things that really connect us and make us a society. These things include the wish to live free, in an independent and democratic country. It is our duty not to forget about the acts of courage of those who defended our country in a difficult moment,” stated the Premier.

The armed conflict on the Nistru started on March 2, 1992. A ceasefire agreement was signed on July 21, 1992 and political negotiations to settle the Transnistrian conflict were opened later.