Work began this week to locate mass graves containing victims of Franco repression in the municipal cemetery in Tarifa. The works, which are being financed by the Diputación de Cádiz, are being coordinated by archaeologist Jesús Román Román.
In 2022 geo-radar testing showed alterations in the subsoil in several areas in the cemetery which could indicate the presence of mass graves.
Franco’s forces are known to have killed at least 109 people in Tarifa from 1936 onwards, research by historian Fernando Sígler Silvera has shown. The executions took place not only in Tarifa cemetery but also those of Facinas and Vico. In 1936 around 12,500 people lived in the municipality.
As elsewhere in this region, there was no war in Tarifa in the sense of two groups fighting each other in 1936. There was only major repression. Legionnaires, Moroccan troops and falangists arrived from Ceuta on 24 and 25 July that year, took over the town and began to shoot innocent people and instil terror in the local population.
If the search for the mass graves is successful, the next step will be to exhume the victims and to take DNA samples from relatives, to help with identification. Further information about the progress of the works can be obtained from the local council and from the Foro Por La Memoria del Campo de Gibraltar.
