ARCHIVED - Green light to exhume mass graves in Valle de los CaidosÂ
The council of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, in the Madrid region, has issued the work permit that will allow the exhumation of mass graves outside the basilica and monument to go ahead.
Work will soon begin to exhume and identify victims buried in mass graves at the Valle de Los Caídos, Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo announced on Thursday (24 June).
The government applied in April for permission from the council of San Lorenzo de El Escorial in the Madrid region, where the Catholic basilica and monument is located, to recover and identify bodies of victims of the civil war and the dictatorship as their families have been demanding for years.
The valley where the controversial monument and basilica, with its 150-metre-tall memorial cross, stands is preserved as a national park and holds the remains of some 40,000 people. Remains from mass graves across the country were moved to the Valle de Los Caídos by dictator Franco’s government in 1959.
Francisco Franco was the only person to rest at the Valle de los Caídos who was not killed during the civil war but was buried there after his death in 1975. His remains were exhumed and removed from the site on 24 October 2019 by the current socialist government despite strong objections from his family and right-wing political groups.
Now, as Sra Calvo, who is also Minister for Democratic Memory, has commented on Twitter, it is only fair for the relatives of victims of the dictatorship to finally recover their dignity.