Old wounds reopen as Spain gets ready to pass mass grave law for Franco’s victims

After Burundi and Cambodia, Spain has the world’s highest number of mass graves. Graham Keeley reports

Human remains discovered in 2016 during exhumation works in a mass grave at Valladolid cemetery where hundreds of people were dumped during the Spanish civil war (AFP/Getty)

A wedding ring discovered in the morbid surroundings of a mass grave reunited Rosa María Insúa with the father she never knew.

Archaeologists excavating the grave found the ring on a skeleton, and the date of the owner's marriage – 1 June 1931 – was inscribed inside.  

Eugenio Juan Insúa’s family confirmed this was the day he married Irene Serrano, providing his daughter with a poignant link to her father, who was killed in 1936 when Rosa María was only six months old.