Oviedo (EFE).- The El Rellán grave, in Grado, could be the largest in Asturias as it can reach up to one hundred meters in length and contain more than fifty corpses of people who died during the Civil War, as he stressed in statements to EFE, the vice president of the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (ARMH) ARMH, Marco González.
The exhumations have managed to discover up to now fifty meters of this trench that was used as a burial place for civilians murdered by fascist troops in September 1937 and in which it is expected that the remains of more deceased persons can be found.
González recalled that in the first two exhumation campaigns, in 2021 and 2022, up to 37 corpses were identified and he pointed out that in the current campaign, which began last Monday, six corpses have been identified from a grave and a minimum of six from another
The representative of this Association regretted that the Juzgado de Grado paralyzed the exhumation of the El Rellán grave for eight months and then dismissed the case and criticized the role that the administrations are developing by leaving the search for information in the hands of civil society. these pits.
In the end, González has criticized, it is the volunteers and the families who have to take charge of the search for these corpses, which in the case of the excavation of Grado is carried out with the means of the Association and the support of the City Council, which bought the land to protect it.
He has recounted that after the fall of the Asturian front, in September 1937, the fascist troops imprisoned many civilians close to the Republic in the Patayo chalet, in Grado, and then took them to the trench located on the El Rellán farm, to execute them. .
In this sense, it has indicated that in the excavations it can be verified how pits of corpses were being formed in the trench that were being killed every day, at distances from each other and along its entire length, which has not yet been fully discovered. Therefore, González calculates that the remains of more deceased than the fifty recorded so far could be found.
Among the remains, 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.
The Association plans to continue the exhumation work beyond next Sunday, the date on which it was scheduled to end, despite the theft suffered during this morning of two candle-type awnings and hand tools and several protective irons.
González thanked the City Council for lending them some scaffolding and other tools today, in addition to the backhoe loader that they had been given to move the earth on the El Rellán farm. EFE