[WATCH] MaltaToday pays tribute to those who left us in 2022

Looking back at some of the prominent Maltese people we've sadly said goodbye to in 2022.

Victor Calvagna, philanthropist and Puttinu Cares founder, died on January 4, aged 63. 

A paediatric oncologist, Dr Victor Calvagna is best known as one of the founders of the charity Puttinu Cares, which cares for young cancer patients that need treatment in the UK. As the first consultant for children with cancer, Calvagna was responsible for drastically increasing survival rates for children afflicted by cancer.

Calvagna set up Puttinu Cares Children’s Cancer Support Group in 2002, to create a coordinated network of care and support to support families of children seeking treatment for cancer, and to provide apartment accommodation in the United Kingdom for patients seeking treatment there.

Chris Scicluna, musician and songwriter, died on February 18, aged 62.

Together, Chris Scicluna and Moira Stafrace formed a lasting musical partnership that propelled them to nationwide fame in 1994 with their song ‘More Than Love’. They remained ever-present on the Maltese musical scence with various band iterations over the years.

Charles 'City' Gatt, father of Maltese jazz, died on February 19, aged 77. 

The inspiration for generations of Maltese jazz musicians, Charles 'City' Gatt was a father figure for the jazz scene and served as musical director of the Malta Jazz Festival, having also recorded music by the Maltese composer Charles Camilleri, and performed at London’s Royal Festival Hall and the Barbican Centre.

Mario Azzopardi, theatre director and poet, died on March 11, aged 77. 

A co-founder of the counter-cultural Moviment Qawmien Letterarju, Mario Azzopardi was a co-founder of the children’s educational magaazine Sagħtar, as well as of other literary journals such as Il-Polz and the left-wing Neo, and co-edited Analiżi, the bi-monthly journal for students of literature.

Karmen Azzopardi, veteran actress, died on March 16, aged 88. 

Karmen Azzopardi played many leading roles and took part in several television productions, cultural programmes, interviews, discussions and also Maltese tv series. She was a great lover of Maltese Literature, often seen reading poems during literature programmes.

John Rizzo Naudi, former PN MP, died on April 23, aged 96. 

John Rizzo Naudi was first elected to parliament in 1976, remaining an MP for two decades.

He served as parliamentary secretary for the elderly when the PN was elected to government in 1987 and then as a parliamentary secretary in the social policy ministry between 1992 and 1995. Rizzo Naudi quit politics in 1995.

He was crucial in setting up the Institute of Healthcare, which started offered nursing degrees for the first time. Rizzo Naudi also served as chancellor of the University of Malta.

Tony Zarb, former General Workers’ Union secretary general, died on May 28, aged 68. 

Tony Zarb was an unmistakable protoganist throughout the 1990s and 2000s in the battle between unionised workers and the Nationalist administration, as well as having opposed EU membership. He led Malta's largest trade union from the frontlines, having immortalised the phrase 'Issa Daqshekk' (Enough is enough), during a series of meetings organised by the GWU to protest against the rising cost of living and deteriorating quality of life in the early 2000s.

Maurice Calleja, former army commander, died on June 21, aged 87. 

Brigadier Maurice Calleja, a former commander of the Armed Forces of Malta, has died aged 87.

He headed the AFM between September 1991 and December 1993, when he resigned after his son Meinrad was arrested and charged with importation of cocaine.

Jesmond Tedesco Triccas, musician, died on August 10, aged 59. 

Triccas’s voice was undeniably linked to his 1980’s Hotel California cover version, a Maltese-language pastiche of the Eagles hit, a stoner’s croon about heavy-handed policemen with clear jibes at the state of the country under the Labour administration of the time. The song lived on surreptitiously through bootleg cassette tapes.

Triccas won the 1999 festival l-Għanja tal-Poplu with the song Il-Karrakka. He was also an actor, having interpreted several characters in musicals like Sette Giugno, Żeża tal-Flagship, Rewwixta tal-Bdiewa and Scrooge. Triccas also appeared on television productions, including Anġli and Grammi.

Fr Elija Vella, Malta’s chief exorcist, died on October 10, aged 81.

Fr Elija Vella was born in St Paul’s Bay and studied in Rome where he graduated in theology in 1964, going on to start his pastoral mission a year later.

Vella has for long been considered Malta’s main exorcist and headed the Maltese church’s Occult and Satanism Commission tasked with studying phenomena related to occult, spriritism and Satanism.

Robert Arrigo, former PN deputy leader, died on October 15, aged 67.

Arrigo, an entrepreneur in the tourism sector, had been battling cancer over the past few months. Despite his illness, Arrigo kept in touch with his electorate and his never-say-die attitude was evidenced in one of his last Facebook posts advertising a December buffet dinner he was organising in aid of Puttinu Cares.

Arrigo had been an MP since 2003 and before that was mayor of Sliema and president of the locality’s football club.

Fr Marius Zerafa, former museums director, died on October 23, aged 93.

Fr Marius Zerafa was a former director of museums, who played a vital role in negotiations to return Caravaggio’s St Jerome to St John’s Co-Cathedral after it was stolen in 1984.

Zerafa was a distinguished art academic. His specialisation was Italian art, and he spent decades lecturing at the Angelicum University of Rome.

He was a member of the Accademia Tiberina, and was decorated with the Cavaliere al Merito della Repubblica Italiana.

Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, former prime minister, died on November 4, aged 89. 

Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, prime minister of Malta from 1984 to 1987, passed away aged 89.

He presided over one of Malta’s most turbulent periods in history, taking over the reins of a divided country from Dom Mintoff, and seeing through controversial reforms in education that resulted in the infamous Church school protests and boycotts.

The radicalisation of PN supporters at the time and the association of criminal elements with particular Labour ministers, led to clashes with the forces of law loyal to the State, as well as violence visited upon PN supporters by Labour supporters. Mifsud Bonnici was unable to quell the violence.

Tony Abela, former PN parliamentary secretary, died on November 8 aged 66. 

The son of former PN MP Sammy Abela, Tony Abela was the PN treasurer between 1996 and 1999. He first contested a general election in 1981 and five years later was elected for the first time to parliament.

Abela was re-elected in 1996, 1998, and 2003. Between 2003 and 2008 Abela was parliamentary secretary for national defence within the Office of the Prime Minister.

Although he did not run in the most recent general election, he was elected to parliament in a 2015 casual election.

Abela was known as a major collector of funds for the PN.

Carmen Tanti, Greenfields singer and Maltese folk icon, died on December 1, aged 75.

Carmen Tanti, the singer of Maltese folk group The Greenfields, married to her co-singer husband Joe Tanti, with whom she had two children, Clive and Mayra.

Three years before marriage in 1973, the Tantis formed The Greenfields with co-singer and guitarist Charles Bajada. Since then, the sound and voice of The Greenfields became a staple of contemporary Maltese folk singing, inspired in part by the folk revival of the early 1970s.

JeanPaul Sofia, died on December 3, aged 20.

Not a known person but a victim of the senseless construction frenzy. He died after a building still under construction at the Kordin Industrial Estate collapsed. Sofia's lifeless body was recovered several hours later from beneath the debris. Five other men were injured in the collapse.

Lilian Miceli Farrugia, SOS Malta founder, died on December 9, aged 97.

Lilian Miceli Farrugia, a philanthropist, was a founding member of SOS Malta in 1991 and served as its first-ever chairperson. The NGO, which continues to operate to this day, describes its mission as that of aiding people “experiencing times of crisis and to empower them by providing support services and opportunities to implement development and change in their country.”

It played a leading role in helping refugees in Albania and Kosovo during the Balkan wars, with Miceli Farrugia adopting a hands-on role. 

Daniel Micallef, former Labour minister, died on December 9, aged 94. 

Daniel Micallef started as a member of the Christian Workers Party, which was founded as an alternative to Dom Mintoff's Labour Party. He was first elected to the Maltese Parliament in 1962. 

He was regarded as a moderate voice during the Mintoff years, which were characterised by a hostile political climate. In 1986, he was appointed Minister of Education, Culture, and the Environment, but he held this position only for a year as the PL lost the general election.

During this time, in the last years of Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici’s government, he raised several crucial environmental issues while setting up the agency known as IDEA. He was respected by environment NGOs but was in constant conflict with the Labour Party’s environmental policies.

In April 1982 Micallef served as acting President of the Republic and in 1997 he was appointed Ambassador to the Holy See and to the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem.

John Tabone, basketball player and coach, died on December 25, aged 71. 

John Tabone was a Maltese basketball star who had a highly successful career as both a player and a coach that spanned five decades. He was crucial in the formation of Luxol Basketball Club, where he won multiple trophies both as a player and as a coach.

Tabone also coached Malta's men's national team to a bronze medal at the Games of the Small States of Europe in 1985, the country's first medal at the Games, and repeated the achievement two years later.