New research raises hopes of exhuming foreign Spanish civil war dead

Catalan authorities ask relatives to provide DNA to help identify 522 members of International Brigades from US, Canada, Britain and Ireland

Researchers in Catalonia have identified 522 members of the International Brigades, including 286 American and 86 British volunteers, who died or disappeared in the region during the Spanish civil war, raising hopes their remains could be found and buried with dignity nine decades after they perished.

About 35,000 people from 50 countries travelled to Spain between 1936 and 1938 to join the brigades to help defend Spain’s democratically elected government against Gen Francisco Franco’s military coup.

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