Spain Vote Raises Concerns Over Fate Of Franco Victim Exhumations

V�znar, Spain, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Jul, 2023 ) :In southern Spain, a team of archaeologists is racing to search for the remains of some 200 people executed by firing squad at the start of the Spanish civil war.

There are fears that the pace of exhumations of victims of the 1936-39 civil war and the dictatorship of Francisco Franco that followed could slow down if the right wins the July 23 snap election, as polls suggest.

Between July and December 1936, the Viznar ravine just outside the southern city of Granada was used "as a place for executions", explains Francisco Carrion, an archaeologist from the University of Granada who is in charge of the exhumation project.

Among those killed there by Franco's nationalist forces were intellectuals, factory workers, teachers and Spain's most prominent 20th-century poet Frederico Garcia Lorca who wrote "Blood Wedding".

Like the others, Lorca was shot for his suspected leftist sympathies by backers of a military uprising against the elected republican government.

As he sieves earth from the mass grave, archaeologist Rafael Cid says working there is much more "intense and personal" than working on a prehistoric site.

Among the remains are also personal effects like gold teeth, lighters, rings, earrings and spectacles.

Most of the victims' immediate family members have died, leaving very few left alive, giving the dig an even greater sense of urgency.

Campaigners say the remains of more than 100,000 victims were left in unmarked graves across Spain, a figure Amnesty International says is only exceeded by Cambodia.