The Spanish government and judges might be instructed to cooperate in the investigation of scores of secret mass graves dating from the civil war (1936-39) and its aftermath. They may be forced to begin opening such graves and to identify the corpses lying within.
The graves are dotted all over Spain and their existence has been known to Spanish people for over 60 years. They are reported to contain the remains of more than 30,000 republican soldiers, militants and other opponents of Franco’s fascist dictatorship. The victims were either captured or detained during the civil war and executed later, or were summarily executed by falangists or Francoist troops in the days and months immediately after the war. Their bodies were flung into hurriedly dug graves by the roadside, at the bottom of cliffs or in the middle of fields. Some were grabbed; others were persuaded to give themselves up after being assured that nothing would happen to them if they did so.
According to campaigners, among the scores of uncovered mass graves are some containing more than one thousand corpses near Oviedo and Gijon in the north, Teruel in the east and Seville in the south. The biggest grave near Merida is believed to contain more than 3,500 bodies.
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