photo by Julián Rojas, in El País.comSan Rafael Cemetery, mass grave
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I have not yet located any information in English on this recent story, but I'm sure the English-speaking press in Spain will cover it sooner or later. Nonetheless, the story is this:
An official report has just been released on results of the three year-long (2006-2009) exhumation of the nine mass graves located at San Rafael Cemetery in Málaga, Spain. There are 4,471 officially registered as buried in this mass grave, from 1937-1957, nearly 20 years after the start of the Spanish Civil War. In what may be seen as an important reconciliatory gesture, the PP (Partido Popular, or "People's Party") and the PSOE (Socialist Party) presented the report together at the Picasso Museum in Málaga. Reportedly, this is the largest mass grave site in western Europe. To date, the remains of 2,840 persons have been exhumed, including those of 349 children who died of hunger, illness or injury. According to the Ministry of Justice, this number refers to children below age 10, the majority of whom died in 1937 and the following years. The exhumed also include 89 women.
To read more about the San Rafael Cemetery and its use as a mass grave site, please see this interview with Sebastián Fernández, a lecturer of History and Archaeology at University of Málaga (from 2008):"There was absolute genocide in Malaga after the Civil War."
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