MADRID: Forensics, archeologists and scientists began exhuming Spanish civil war victims from a huge basilica near the capital Madrid on Monday, where the body of former dictator Francisco Franco once lay.
The development comes as Spain is all set for an early general election on July 23 in which Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez faces a tough challenge with obstacles.
The experts also called for exhuming the remains of 128 victims of the 1936-39 civil war from the complex at the Valley of Cuelgamuros, with its former name as the Valley of the Fallen, the democratic memory ministry said.
In a statement sent to AFP, the ministry stated that the purpose of the move was to recover those bodies and deliver them to their families for a dignified burial adding that the move has nothing to do with politics but was a matter of humanity.
Exhuming Victims also a Demand for Relatives
Taking to public television government spokeswoman Isabel Rodriguez said that relatives of those buried there have long campaigned to be able to lay their loved ones to rest near their families under their names adding that the voices of the victims have been heard.
Meanwhile, a laboratory has been established in the basilica carved into a mountainside to assist the archeologists, forensic experts, and scientific police to do their work with ease.
The remains of about 33,000 people from both sides of the civil war are buried without identification at the complex, which is topped by a 150-meter (500-foot) stone cross.
A significant amount of remains were moved to the site, some 30 miles northwest of Madrid from cemeteries and different mass graves across the country without their families being informed.
Only two graves at the basilica were ever marked, those of Franco and of Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of Spain’s fascist Falange party. The government of Spain relocated Franco’s remains to a civilian cemetery in 2019 and did the same with those of Primo de Rivera in April.
Honoring those who lost their lives or suffered violence/repression during the civil war and the dictatorship of Franco that followed has been a key priority for Sanchez, who enjoys power since 2018.
A so-called democratic memory law which came into effect in October last year aims to turn the Valley of Cuelgamuros into a place of memory to recall the dark years of the dictatorship.
But the law has been politically divisive, with right-wing parties saying it needlessly dredges up the past.
Meanwhile, opposition leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo and head of the right-wing Popular Party (PP), has expressed and pledged to repeal the law if he gets into power in next month’s election.
