Mass grave: Fosa de Priaranza del Bierzo

Priaranza del Bierzo, hidden away in the mountains of northern Spain, hides a grim secret. It is the site of a mass grave, exhumed in 2000, containing the remains of 13 civilian republican prisoners who were captured and executed on October 16, 1936 by Falangist pistolers. This grave, known as La Fosa de Priaranza del Bierzo, serves as a memorial and a testament to the darker chapters of Spain's history. The village lies on a turnoff of the Comarcal 536 road, and was used as a mass grave for those lost during the Spanish Civil War.

Somewhere between 14 bodies and 13 victims remain unaccounted for. The grave is part of the Memorias Sitradas project, which documents different places of memory related to severe human rights violations worldwide, managed by the International Center for Human Rights and UNESCO (CIPDH-UNESCO). The project aims to show the different ways communities cope with their traumatic pasts and share this history with future generations. In 2010, a plaque was placed at the grave to commemorate the victims.

The plaque reads: 'This ditch, for more than 64 years, was the anonymous grave of 13 civilian republican victims of the Francoist repression. Their exhumation in October 2000 broke the silence about thousands of missing and gave rise to the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory.'

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons