The grave plan that is being carried out in the Balearic Islands since the last legislature has allowed the bodies of 23 people to be exhumed in the Formentera cemetery, which could be the bodies of many others who were retaliated against in the prison that was on the island after the War. Civilian, during the Franco regime. It is believed that the victims died of hunger and poor hygienic conditions in the prison.
The exhumation tasks began a month ago and have resulted in the discovery of 23 possible victims who would have been held in the island’s prison between 1940 and 1942. Likewise, remains of three sets of disarticulated bones have also been found (in secondary position) that could also correspond to possible victims of the prison, according to the Balearic Government in a statement.
During these weeks, 33 graves have been excavated, most of them double, that is, there were two possible prisoners buried in the same grave, one on top of the other, in different coffins. Two of the individuals located are under 30 years of age and two others present signs compatible with pulmonary tuberculosis, which was one of the main causes of mortality among inmates in the prison.
The exhumations are being carried out by the Aranzadi-ATICS Science Society, which will now carry out the laboratory work and interpret the data to assess the possibility of expanding the research to another area of ??the cemetery. Genetic analyzes will also continue in collaboration with the Junta de Extremadura, and other institutions, to look for relatives who can give their samples for the identification of the victims. It is suspected that some of the victims were prisoners from Extremadura and Murcia.
The Government details that, according to the documentation of the time and the study carried out by the Ibizan historian Antoni Ferrer Abárzuza, 58 people – the majority from Extremadura and Murcia, but also from Madrid, Catalonia, the Canary Islands, Valencia and the Balearic Islands – would have died in the colony of La Savina between 1940 and 1942, due to food shortages and the absence of hygienic-sanitary conditions in the camp. The discovery of the bodies, in a cemetery that is less than three kilometers from the Francoist military colony, has just confirmed these investigations.
The Balearic Islands approved a grave law in the last legislature to facilitate the discovery of burials of victims of Franco’s rule on the islands. The work has made it possible to discover the body of the historic trade unionist Aurora Picornell, who was in the Manacor cemetery despite the fact that it was suspected that she could be in the Porreres cemetery.
The PP, then in the opposition led by the current Balearic president, Marga Prohens, supported this grave plan. Prohens is committed to keeping this grave law in force and helping to discover new victims of reprisals. However, Prohens has agreed with Vox to repeal another law, that of Democratic Memory, which she did not support at the time. Several memorial entities in the Balearic Islands have created a platform to demand that Prohens not repeal this law.
