The Generalitat has recovered the skeletal remains of 57 people in the grave of the Remei hermitage, in Flix (Tarragona), the largest exhumed last year in Catalonia and which would correspond to a Republican field hospital that was active during the battle. of the Ebro of the Civil War.
The Department of Justice, Rights and Memory reported this Sunday that this is the result of the excavations carried out at the site between September 2023 and last January.
In a statement, this department details that the archaeological remains and oral testimonies suggest that the grave would be linked to a republican field hospital located in the hermitage.
For example, amputations and evidence of medical treatments have been found in the majority of exhumed individuals, in addition to medical material waste (Kramer splints, remains of casts or different types of vials).
After the recovery of the skeletal remains, anthropological and genetic studies are being carried out to determine the identity of the deceased and notify the families registered in the census of missing persons and adhered to the genetic identification program of the Generalitat.
The grave of the Remei hermitage was discovered by chance by some children who were playing with shovels and beach buckets in the area in March 2013. Until then, there was no documentary reference to the existence of a possible grave in the surrounding area. of this hermitage.
As a result of the investigations, a neighbor of Flix explained that the place served as a field hospital for Republican troops and that she herself was a nurse there. According to her story, all the soldiers who died were buried near the hermitage.
Researchers believe that the hospital operated at some point during the Battle of the Ebro, which took place from July 25 to November 16, 1938.
The two hypotheses on the table are that it could have been operational in the first moments of the battle linked to the third Republican Division, which crossed the river through the Flix sector, or in the last phase, related to the 35th Division, as a place of classification or field hospital of the Mas del Señor de Bovera.
The general director of Democratic Memory, Alfons Aragoneses, has explained that these works allow not only the recovery of bodies that can be buried “with dignity” but also “advance in scientific knowledge about the historical period of the Civil War.”
Along these lines, he highlighted that this type of excavations provide information about the daily life of the soldiers and the health of the time.
