\ The start of the excavation and exhumation work in Manacor also makes it possible to establish an approximate timetable for the following interventions: the work in Sa Coma is scheduled for mid-March, while that of the Sant Francesc cemetery in Formentera will take place after the summer.

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Fourth Graves Plan

The regional secretary of Productive Sectors and Democratic Memory of the Govern, Jesús Jurado, and the director general of Democratic Memory, Marc Andreu Herrera, announced today at a press conference the start of the excavation and exhumation work of the Government’s Fourth Plan for Graves and Democratic Memory to be carried out by the joint venture formed by Aranzadi and ATICS, which will begin this Wednesday in the Son Coletes cemetery.

This third phase of excavations and exhumations in the Manacor cemetery is a continuation of the work carried out in the previous phases, which have already allowed work to be carried out on 482 m2, and will involve intervention on just over 1,300 m2 until all the land corresponding to the site of the old cemetery that was not affected by the works of 1953 has been completed. (The old Son Coletes site, currently covered by the municipal cemetery, had an approximate surface area of some 3,600 m², of which it is estimated that some 1,800 m² were not affected by the construction of the new cemetery and are therefore likely to preserve the remains of Franco’s repression).

The objective is to locate the continuation of the graves previously discovered, and other possible finds, but also to discard those areas in which, most probably, there will be no discoveries, but which will still have to prospect, under the Govern’s premise of “searching in all those places where there is a minimum possibility of finding human remains”.

To this end, a series of priority areas have been established for extensive excavation: those where it is known that the graves that were used to deposit the remains of those who suffered reprisals in 1936-1937 may still exist, or that new graves may appear; and other secondary areas, where archaeological probes will be carried out, as it is considered, as a result of previous interventions, that the possibility of finding new remains is lower.

The regional secretary for Productive Sectors and Democratic Memory, Jesús Jurado, has stated that “with this third phase of Son Coletes we will open up every square metre that can be used because we are committed to continuing to search for the victims while there is still a chance of finding them, even if it is only one”.