New forensic dig near Granada seeks Lorca remains

Forensics experts excavating in Alfacar near Granada hope of finding the remains of Federico García Lorca. Photo: El País
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• Archaeologists work to find remains of three others killed with Spanish poet
• Team hopes that Lorca’s remains will also be found in common grave at site

As many Spaniards continue to seek the truth about the bloody past of the Spanish Civil War and the widespread repression under the 36-year right-wing dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco that followed, forensic experts have again begun to excavate in Alfacar near Granada in southern Spain to find the remains of Spanish poet Federico García Lorca, murdered by anti-Republican forces in August 1936 at the outset of the war and believed dumped in a common grave.

After repeated unsuccessful attempts, archaeologists and forensics experts working in a team supported by the Regreso con Honor (‘Return with Honor’) association, are working at the behest of families of three individuals shot alongside Lorca — the anrachists Joaquín Arcollas and Francisco Galadí, as well as local school teacher, Dióscoro Galindo — and hope that by finding their remains they will also uncover the final resting place of the Spanish poet.

The forensic team is working on the hypothesis that the bodies of Lorca and the three other men were thrown into mass graves in the Peñón del Colorado area outside Alfacar, where anti-Republican militias and troops were believed to have dumped the bodies of some 400 individuals after executing them for their pro-Republican sympathies.

► Read More in Spanish at El País, Público and El Mundo …

► Read More in English at The Olive Press …

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