A team of 15 technicians began exhumation work this Monday in the Cuelgamuros Valley, known until recently as the Valley of the Fallen. The objective is to try to recover the remains claimed by relatives of 128 victims of the Civil War, most of them Republicans.
Six forensics, archaeologists, dentists, geneticists and four members of the scientific police participate in the operation, promoted by the Spanish government to comply with the Democratic Memory law, whose specific mission is to help identify the boxes in which they are buried. victims if the registration numbers are not clearly visible to the naked eye.
A complete forensic laboratory has been installed inside the basilica, with an X-ray machine, microscopes, measuring tools, tables and special lighting so that experts can work.
Last December, workers from the public company Tragsa, architects and other specialists from National Heritage began conditioning the area to protect the altarpiece, secure the architectural structures and guarantee the safety of the technicians, who will work with individual protection equipment, glasses, insulating mask, gloves and boots. Air filters have also been placed to minimize the inhalation of suspended dust in the columbarium area.
The device has been designed to deal with the 128 claims for remains submitted by relatives of victims belonging to both sides, the Francoist and the Republicans, the latter being the majority group.
In the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, where they will begin to intervene this Monday, 78 are being sought; and in the SantÃsimo, where a second phase would be intervened, at 39. There are also remains of victims in other crypts, where the technicians will enter later.
