Victims of Franco’s regime discovered at Serantes cemetery

The excavation to recover the bodies of those subjected to reprisals has revealed vertical burials and signs of ‘extreme’ violence.

The excavation undertaken at the Serantes cemetery in an attempt to locate the bodies of victims of Franco’s regime has yielded its first results. Test pits carried out in a narrow grave at the Ferrol cemetery uncovered the remains of seven individuals, showing “clear signs of violence” and found “in a completely vertical position”. This was revealed on Wednesday by those in charge of the investigation, led by the A Coruña Provincial Council in collaboration with the Histagra research group at the University of Santiago, who estimate that around 200 people murdered by the Franco regime between 1936 and 1942 may be, or are, buried in Serantes.

 

The president of the Provincial Council of A Coruña, Valentín González Formoso, emphasised the institutional support for this team of professionals working “in defence of democratic memory”, noting the close attention with which the public is following developments in Serantes. For her part, the Ministry’s Director-General for Victim Support, Zoraida Hijosa, confirmed the continuation of financial support for the Provincial Council — which has been allocated 150,000 euros for work in Serantes, Boisaca and Carral — to continue carrying out these excavations, exhuming the bodies, identifying them and returning the remains to their families.

 

The provincial councillor for Civil Rights, Sol Agra, emphasised the unique nature and severity of this site, pointing out that in the Serantes valley the bodies are not arranged in the usual manner for a burial; rather, as the experts say, there are signs of violence in a place where numerous victims of reprisals were executed at the same time. “It was almost an ideological genocide,” said the councillor. Agra emphasised that the project aims “to shed light on what that repression was like and to return the remains to their families as a democratic duty in the face of collective amnesia”.

 

Further information:

https://www.dacoruna.gal/novas/ficha-noticia-reducida?id_evento=28233&