Archaeologists have recovered the bodies of victims of former Spanish dictator General Fransisco Franco, who were executed and buried at a cemetery in central Spain.
What Happened: A team of forensic archaeologists and anthropologists are working to find, exhume and identify those who were killed under the Franco regime at the cemetery in the town of Almagro between 1939 and 1940, at the end of the Spanish Civil War, according to a press release from Cranfield University published Monday. Researchers from Cranfield are working with colleagues from the University Complutense of Madrid (UCM) and Mapas de Memoria (Maps of Memory) at the site in the Ciudad Real province. Similar efforts around the country have recovered more than 7,000 victims of the Spanish Civil War since 2000.
What Next: Family members of the victims are being contacted and it is hoped that DNA analysis can match them and allow for a proper burial of the remains. The team will carry out excavations at the site until the beginning of June, then anthropological and DNA analysis will be carried out until the end of the year to identify the remains.