Oviedo (EFE).- The Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (ARMH) has located this Monday the first evidence of several bodies at the beginning of the third exhumation of El Rellán, in Grado, to continue searching for the remains of people killed by the fascist troops after the fall of the Asturian front, in September 1937.
Thus, evidence of some bodies has appeared, including a shoe sole that seems to show a body lying face down, which may indicate that there are others underneath, according to the ARMH, which will receive people in the coming days. In recent years they have received information that they could have relatives buried there.
Last December, the Asturian Government began the demolition of the buildings attached to the La Chabola pit, in El Rellán, where the exhumation of the remains of 38 people has already taken place and where indications of the existence of more victims have been found. .
The demolition work and landscape recovery of the area, which has a budget of 41,060 euros, involves the removal of some warehouses in a state of ruin and will allow the ARMH to continue with the exhumations being carried out in the area.
This is the second demolition carried out by the Principality, which in the first phase of the excavations also had to remove a concrete platform to facilitate the progress of the work.
The ARMH intervened in 2021 in the pit of La Chabola in a ditch of just over ten meters where the remains of 15 people were recovered and evidence of one more was documented, buried under the structure of what was a pig farm, which made to think that under the building more bodies could be found.
2022 excavations
This hypothesis was confirmed in the 2022 excavations given that the continuation of the work made it possible to recover the remains of another 23 victims and during the intervention carried out in April it was verified that the burials could continue under those buildings.
In April, numerous personal objects were recovered and in the trench, along with the human remains, toiletries such as razors, combs, small mirrors and bottles were found, as well as more personal objects, such as glasses, a medal of the Virgin of Covadonga , a ring and a buckle with initials, pencils, lighters, etc.
The Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory then took DNA samples from forty relatives who suspect that their loved ones were murdered and buried in that place.
The map of graves prepared from an investigation by the University of Oviedo was able to identify at least 25 people who would have been murdered in that place, seven women and eighteen men, including a thirteen-year-old boy, although it is estimated that in the place could be more than fifty people shot between 1936 and 1938. EFE