Simon Wade
SEVEN bodies out of 14 exhumed from in Alicante are believed to be of freedom fighters that were executed during the height of Franco’s Spanish repression in the 1940s.
Careful exhumations of two mass graves have been carried out in Alicante Municipal Cemetery since February 2021.
Scores of corpses have been found, many of which show signs of violence ante-mortem.
Regional Minister, Rosa Pérez Garijo (pictured), described the finds as “very positive” as the remains will be able to go to the relatives of the people who were murdered by defending our rights and freedoms.”
She continued, “we have a lot of work to do but we continue in the name of dignity for our country.”
The Mayor of Aspe, Antonio Puerto, admitted that DNA results from the finds may, “correspond to those shot in 1941, many of them from Aspe”.
Continuing, “[we] hope that families can be repaired and [the bodies] have the decent rest that they deserved from the first moment.”
The works in Grave 36 were carried out October and November, looking for the remains of freedom fighters murdered during the summer of 1941.
The two metre deep pit revealed the partial remains of two victims, one showing a bullet hole to the skull.
Three more bodies found show a grisly violent death.
Samples of teeth, skull fragments and other bones are being studied with the aim of locating a genetic profile.
The number of right femur bones found suggested some 25 bodies were buried there, matching with cemetery records from the Franco era.
A further seven bodies have been found in Grave 20, four of which show signs of being executed by bullets to the head or chest.
Throughout Alicante Province, some 400 people from various municipalities disappeared as victims of Franco’s repression, many believed to have been executed after a summary trial.
