The Sicilian Independents movement, lu Frunti Nazziunali Sicilianu “Sicilia Indipinnenti”, held its annual seminar last week in Enna.

The seminar was opened by the movement’s president, Professor Corrado Mirto, former professor of medieval studies at the University of Palermo who spoke about Enna’s crucial role in Sicily’s multi-thousand year history, especially in the Sicilian Vespers. Enna must regain its central role, he said.

After further speeches, it was the turn of the movement’s national secretary, Pippo Scianò who spoke about tourism. It just cannot be, he said, that the city once known as “Umbilicus Siciliae”, the capital city of that region which shook off the Roman Empire’s yoke and slavery, Henna, the city with over 3,000 years of civilisation gets so few tourists.

He added: “Over the next five years we must work so that the number of tourists will be over 100 million a year. This is a carefully calculated figure, if we consider that Malta, daughter and sister of Sicily, today gets between 12 and 13 million tourists a year, just as many tourists who come to Sicily every year, even though our region (or nation) is many times larger and our population is 17 times bigger.”