According to experts and memory associations, an estimated 130,000 people are buried in unidentified mass graves throughout the Spanish territory.
Archaeological excavations carried out in the province of Zaragoza (northern Spain) have led to the discovery of two graves with people killed during the Spanish civil war (1936-1939), which could hold up to 150 bodies.
The excavation takes place in the cemetery of the town of Belchite, the scene of one of the bloodiest battles of the Spanish war, and fifteen bodies have already appeared in the first grave.
Barely two days after the coup d’état of the troops that rose up against the republic, on July 18, 1936, the town of Belchite suffered the first repressions by Falangists and other groups of rebels that killed about 150 people, who may be those who occupy that first discovered grave.
The president of the Association for the Recovery of the Democratic Memory of Belchite, José Vidal, pointed out that of those 150 murdered “there is specific documentation”, although he told Efe that those shot during the Civil War in the town would amount to about 400 people 325 of the town and the rest of other surrounding municipalities.
The excavation works, which began on September 30, allowed bone remains to emerge, whose position indicated that they had been “thrown away”, in addition to denoting “significant violence”, according to the archaeologist and co-director of the excavation, Gonzalo García, as in the case of a body that appeared bound, face down and shot in the skull.
Among the fifteen bodies, several young women appeared, one less than 18 years old. Altogether, they are men and women in their twenties and forties, very few of advanced age.
For the anthropologist José Ignacio Lorenzo, this is a “very important” discovery because, although the events were known, there were no eyewitnesses or who the people were, so he appealed to descendants of Belchite to contact the association for the taking of DNA samples, since once the exhumations are concluded there is a “meticulous” work to identify the remains.
According to experts and memory associations, an estimated 130,000 people are buried in unidentified mass graves throughout the Spanish territory, of which 90,000 were shot during the civil war and 40,000 after the war.
The recovery of these bodies is a constant demand on the part of the victims’ relatives, especially considering that the direct family (children and siblings) hardly remains, since the civil war ended more than eighty years ago.
However, despite the existence of a Historical Memory Law since 2007, this chapter in the history of Spain has not yet been closed and another Memory Law is currently being processed in Congress to promote the recovery of the disappeared during the civil war and dictatorship and repairing the victims. (I)
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