Day of Remembrance of the Dead Marked in Slovenia

By , 01 Nov 2019, 10:28 AM Lifestyle
Žale Cemetery, Ljubljana Žale Cemetery, Ljubljana Wikimedia - 0000ff CC-by-3.0

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STA, 1 November 2019 - Slovenians will remember their dead today with ceremonies marking Day of Remembrance of the Dead, a national holiday and a work-free day being observed around the country. The main event in Ljubljana's Congress Square will be attended by the country's top officials. People will also be visiting cemeteries and lighting candles at graves.

The secular version of All Saints' Day has been marked in Slovenia as a work-free day since 1948, and as of 1959 also as a national holiday. It was renamed Day of Remembrance of the Dead in 1989.

Various remembrance and wreath-laying ceremonies are traditionally held on this day all over the country, and people visit the graves of their relatives to put flowers and light candles to remember them.

Attending today's ceremony at the Monument to the Victims of All Wars will be President Borut Pahor and Prime Minister Marjan Šarec, as well as the speakers of the lower and upper chambers of parliament, Dejan Židan and Alojz Kovšca.

Pahor will lay a wreath at the Monument to the Victims of All Wars, which was inaugurated in 2017, also accompanied by Alenka Ermenc, the chief of staff of the Slovenian Armed Forces, and Police Commissioner Tatjana Bobar.

Šarec and National Assembly Speaker Židan will also visit the monument for the victims of the 1991 independence war at Žale cemetery. Židan will also lay wreaths at the monuments to the victims of the first and second world wars there.

On the occasion of Day of Remembrance of the Dead, the Statistics Office said that, just like in 2017, more than 20,000 residents of Slovenia died last year, with deaths outnumbering births.

A total of 20,485 persons died in Slovenia in 2018, of whom 10,372 were women, and it was the year with the third highest number of deaths after the Second World War.

The average age of persons who died last year in Slovenia (77.9) was almost nine years higher than 30 years ago, with the share of persons younger than 65 who died in 2018 standing at 16.5%.

Men in Slovenia die younger than women on average, but the average age at death for men (74.1 last year) is increasing at a faster pace than that for women (81.6 last year).

While the premature mortality rate (deaths before the age of 65) is higher in men, it is decreasing for both genders. Boys born in 2018 may expect to live to the age of 78.3, and girls until the age of 84.

In almost 71% of cases of persons who died in Slovenia last year, the cause of death was related to cardiovascular diseases and neoplasms.

You can see more statistics about Slovenia here

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