Nadia McDonald
Excavators in Mallorca have begun digging up a beach in search of victims of the Civil War.
Archeologists believe there may be a mass grave buried on the beach of sa Coma dating back to the three week Battle of Mallorca.
‘We open pits to close wounds’ said Juan Pedro Yllanes, Vice-President of the Balearic Government.
Digging began on Thursday 23 March and will last ten days with the aim of confirming or ruling out the presence of graves in the sandbanks.
The exhumation forms part of the fourth Grave Plan set out by the Government in January 2023 which intends to uncover all identified graves.
Once historical testimonies alleged that the site had buried remains of republicans assassinated during the Civil War, the Government was then obliged to take action, added the Vice-President.
It is thought that the grave at sa Coma may have been the main one used to bury the dead during the Battle of Mallorca.
Yllanes has stressed that the process being carried out at sa Coma ‘is an intervention that seeks to investigate war crimes’. Those thought to be buried in the mass grave are ‘people who were shot for the simple fact of being captured.’
Given the location of the possible mass graves being in a tourist zone, the Government reached an agreement with local hotels to carry out an initial excavation phase and in view of those results, works may continue after the summer season.
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