Madrid/Bilbao (EFE).- Forty Basque families have recognized the right to exhumation of their relatives buried in the Cuelgamuros Valley (former Valley of the Fallen), as reported by the Gogora Institute in a note.
Forensic work to exhume 128 victims from the Cuelgamuros Valley (former Valley of the Fallen) began this Monday with the search for 18 bodies claimed by their relatives and located in the crypt of the Holy Sepulcher chapel, specifically on level 0 .
A team of 15 people will access this place to locate the specific boxes containing the remains of these victims, with a label indicating their place of origin.
The rest of the bodies located in this area and that have not been claimed by their relatives “will remain in the place they occupy inside the columbarium, improving their disposition and adequacy”, have explained sources from the Ministry of the Presidency, Relations with the Courts and Memory Democratic.
Basque families have waited too long
“There are more than 40 families who have been waiting too long, we hope that this time their wish will come true and they can bring their relatives home.
Gogora is in permanent contact with the forensic team that is working in the Valley and with the Secretary of State for Democratic Memory, to keep families informed on time”, said the director of Gogora, Aintzane Ezenarro.
Currently, there are 45 Basque families that have shown interest in recovering the remains of their relatives from the Cuelgamuros Valley, of which 40 have recognized the right to exhumation and Gogora has DNA samples from 36 of these families.
Of those 45 Basques buried in the Valley, 10 are Republicans, 23 fought on the rebel side and the remaining 12 are unknown. Gogora estimates that some 300 Basques are buried in Cuelgamuros.
Most of the bodies requested, in the chapel of the Holy Sepulcher
In the chapel of the Holy Sepulcher, where most of the bodies requested by relatives are located, the work will be done from the bottom floor upwards to consolidate and shore up each of the five floors where there are burials.
For this reason, later the work will continue on levels 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the same chapel in search of 59 claimed bodies, among them those of the brothers Manuel and Antonio Ramiro Lapeña, natives of Villarroya de la Sierra (Zaragoza), shot in 1936 by the Francoists and whose exhumation is also mandatory in compliance with a 2016 court ruling.
And the rest, until the search for the 128 bodies is complete, will be addressed in a second phase in other chapels of the basilica.
In the Cuelgamuros Valley, which changed its name after the recent entry into force of the Democratic Memory Law and is considered the largest mass grave in Spain, there are buried 33,833 remains of victims of both sides of the Civil War.
However, the forensic exhumation work that began this Monday affects only the 128 victims claimed by their relatives, who received the notification at dawn, according to EFE, the lawyer for victims of Francoism Eduardo Ranz.
The exhumation plan
El Valle also housed the remains of the dictator Francisco Franco and the founder of the fascist Falange Española party, José Antonio Primo de Rivera. Both are already out of the place: Franco in 2019 by order of the Government, and Primo de Rivera this year, in application of the Democratic Memory Law.
The exhumation of 128 victims takes place “once all the legal, technical and security obstacles have been cleared,” according to the aforementioned Ministry sources, who assure that they will be carried out “in an act of dignity and maximum respect for those there buried”.
The exhumation plan, financed with a fund of 650,000 euros from the Government, has “adequate proportionality” between human and material resources.
But from the Ministry they warn that they do not want to create “false expectations” about the results, since “it is not an easy task and there is no equivalent precedent in any other part of the world.”
A laboratory in the basilica for genetic analysis
The Ministry has released video images of the preparations for the laboratory installed in the Basilica del Valle itself, next to the chapels.
The images show workers from the Forensic Legal Medicine Institute and the National Police dressed in protective overalls, masks, gloves and hats, and in some cases next to boxes, cameras and microscopes with which they will preliminary analyze the remains. that they are exhumed.
These samples will then be subjected to genetic analysis by the National Institute of Toxicology and Forensic Sciences of Madrid, under the Ministry of Justice.
The Government resumed the exhumation work last December with a preliminary conditioning phase that consisted of enabling access to the columbariums, securing the architectural structures that needed it and implementing the occupational safety protocols “for an intervention of this complexity”. , as the ministry explains in the notification sent to relatives.
This Monday the forensic intervention itself begins, which will consist of the search and location of the bodies, as far as technically possible, and the corresponding genetic analyzes that may lead to identifications.
Finally, a phase of conditioning of the columbariums will take place, improving the facilities and the conditions of conservation of the remains buried there.
The next of kin were notified this morning of the start of the forensic work, according to EFE, the lawyer for victims of the Franco regime, Eduardo Ranz.
The Government resumed the exhumation work last December with a preliminary conditioning phase that consisted of enabling access to the columbariums, securing the architectural structures that needed it and implementing the occupational safety protocols “for an intervention of this complexity”. , as the ministry explains in the notification sent to relatives.
forensic intervention
This Monday the forensic intervention itself begins, which will consist of the search and location of the bodies, as far as technically possible, and the corresponding genetic analyzes that may lead to identifications.
“We can guarantee that the forensic experts who will be in charge of this task are prepared and have extensive proven experience in this type of investigation. The forensic intervention will be carried out using internationally recognized protocols and the reference laboratories are accredited in this field,” the ministry underlines in the notification.
Finally, a phase of conditioning of the columbariums will take place, improving the facilities and the conditions of conservation of the remains buried there.