Officials have asked for a permit that will allow them to begin exhuming the bodies from the Valley of the Fallen, a massive mausoleum built on the outskirts of Madrid by Spain’s former fascist dictator Francisco Franco, according to a published statement from it. ministry of presidency. Monday.
The remains are buried in the crypt of the Basilica of the Holy Cross, and some have been claimed by relatives, the ministry said.
The project includes construction work that will allow workers to safely access and dispose of the remains.
The request was made after the government approved 665,000 euros ($ 793,000) in funding for the project on March 30.
Since 1959, the remains of more than 33,000 victims of the Spanish Civil War are believed to have been shipped from all over the country to the Valley of the Fallen. The crypts containing the remains have not been opened since, the ministry said.
A structural analysis of the crypts conducted between 2017 and 2019 has made it possible for officials to identify potential accesses to the crypts, the ministry added.
On March 29, the ministry also announced the allocation of three million euros ($ 3.58 million) to a broader program dedicated to “seeking, identifying and dignifying people who had disappeared during the civil war and dictatorship.”
The Valley of the Fallen was built in part by political prisoners of Franco’s regime. Franco was himself buried in the basilica when he died in 1975, but in October 2019 his remains were exhumed and moved to the nearby Mingorrubio State Cemetery in El Pardo, 20 kilometers north of Madrid, where his wife is buried.
The dig was a major policy promise by Sanchez when he took power in 2018.
Franco’s family and his far-right supporters opposed the plan, and the family unsuccessfully appealed to the court.
The Valley of the Fallen has become a draw for tourists and far-right sympathizers who hold annual rallies to mark Franco’s death on November 20.
Franco ruled Spain from the late 1930s until his death. Thousands of executions were carried out by his nationalist regime during the Spanish Civil War and in the years since.
In 2007, the Spanish government passed the Law of Historical Memory, which formally condemns the Franco regime and bans political events in the Valley of the Fallen. It also recognizes the victims of the Civil War and the Franco state and promises assistance to those victims and their descendants.
CNN’s Aimee Lewis and Laura Perez Maestro contributed to this report.