Experts have been selected to oversee the exhumation of Spanish Civil War dead from mass graves at a basilica outside Madrid.
Up to 34,000 sets of remains from both sides are believed to be buried in the Valley of the Fallen, the monument General Franco, Spain’s nationalist dictator, built after defeating the left-wing Republican government in the 1936-1939 war.
In recent years dozens of families have requested that the remains of their relatives be moved.
“It’s good news to see that the committee has been formed and that there are people on it who know the most about this in Spain,” Eduardo Ranz, a lawyer for eight families with relatives buried in the grave said yesterday. The team includes Vidal Santos Yusta, the forensic scientist who was present in 2019 when the remains of Franco were exhumed and moved to a crypt in Madrid, the first step in ending what the families of some victims felt was a continuing glorification of the dictator.
Francisco Etxeberria, a forensic scientist and anthropologist, and Francisco Ferrándiz, an anthropologist considered a leading authority on the Valley of the Fallen, are also in the team.
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The Socialist-led coalition government in March earmarked about €665,000 (£566,000) to help families recover remains. So far, families of about 50 victims have successfully petitioned the government.
The dictator presented the basilica, carved out of granite on the Sierra de Guadarrama hills, as a monument to reconciliation when he inaugurated it in 1959 but had used prisoners of war to build it. Many of the soldiers buried there were removed from cemeteries against their families’ wishes in order to fill the eight crypts. Their remains were not given named tombs.
Victims’ families hope exhumations will soon start but say they haven’t received news from the government since they were taken to view the crypts more than two years ago.
Ranz represents Manuel Lapeña, whose father and uncle are buried at the tomb. His daughter, Purificación, won a court ruling five years ago to allow her relatives to be exhumed and reburied in a family cemetery. “Manuel is now 95 and in declining health. We haven’t got any time left,” said Ranz.
