At Mass Grave Exhumation, Daughter of Spanish Civil War Victim Seeks Closure

COLMENAR VIEJO, Spain (Reuters) – Benita Navacerrada is a 91-year-old Spanish lady with a craving to know the place her father was buried greater than 80 years in the past.

She hopes the reply will lie in an exhumation outdoors Madrid of the stays of greater than 100 individuals who had been executed by forces of late dictator Francisco Franco in 1939, within the aftermath of Spain’s Civil Battle.

“I wish to know the place he’s as a result of I’ve by no means recognized,” Navacerrada advised Reuters this week on the cemetery of Colmenar Viejo the place two mass graves have been discovered.

Navacerrada stated finding her father, who was a union chief and died when she was seven, would deliver pleasure and closure: “I may say he’s resting in peace and never thrown on the market like pigs”.

Forensic scientists had been analysing this weekend the second mass grave, situated in a pathway on the cemetery, gathering skulls with indicators of bullet holes and bones to genetically establish them and later hand them to their members of the family.

A complete of 108 civilians, many related to leftist events and unions, had been executed and buried on the Colmenar Viejo cemetery between April and December of 1939.

The exhumation of the primary mass grave began final yr with the monetary assist of Spain’s leftist authorities and led to discovering the stays of 12 folks.

Spain transitioned to democracy following Franco’s demise in 1975 however the legacy of his four-decade fascist dictatorship nonetheless divides Spanish society. The problem of exhumations was a sizzling subject within the run-up to a nationwide election in July during which each a right-wing and left-wing bloc didn’t win a majority.

One the primary insurance policies applied by Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez when he took workplace in 2018 was passing a regulation making it attainable for relations to establish victims who’re buried in about 2,400 unmarked mass graves across the nation.

The rival conservative Folks’s Celebration (PP) and far-right Vox oppose the “Regulation on Democratic Reminiscence”, arguing it threatens to reopen wounds, and throughout the election marketing campaign they vowed to repeal it.

PP and Vox have already dedicated to limit the regulation in a number of areas the place they’ve sealed coalition governments in latest weeks.

Luis Perez Lara, chair of a fee within the city of San Sebastian de los Reyes selling the exhumation at close by Colmenar Viejo, stated the aim is for relations of these executed to have the ability to bury them with dignity.

“The horrible wounds of the brutality performed by the dictatorship haven’t been closed,” he stated.

(Reporting by Juan Medina; Further reporting and writing by Joan Faus; Enhancing by Frances Kerry)

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