The Government of Spain has today delivered to the family, in an institutional act of an intimate nature, held in Vitoria-Gasteiz, the remains of Constancio Allende Sancho, found in the Cuelgamuros Valley.

The Secretary of State for Democratic Memory, Fernando Martínez, who handed over the remains to the victim’s granddaughter, Amaia Allende, stressed that “the Government remains committed to the exhumations in the Cuelgamuros Valley of all victims whose relatives demand it. It is a duty of remembrance and an obligation of the democratic state.”

Constancio Allende Sancho was born in Vallarta de Bureba (Burgos), on September 19, 1904. His parents were Valentín Allende, a day laborer by trade, and Jacinta Sancho, both also from Vallarta.

At some point in his youth he emigrated to Vitoria-Gasteiz, where he married Gertrudis Elguea and Saéz de Vicuña, a native of Adana (Araba). He worked there as a worker.

Allende was compulsorily recruited and fought with the Phalanx, possibly in the 1st Century. He died on November 2, 1936, during a war action in Guadalajara, at the age of 32.

The investigation carried out by the forensic team, led by Professor Francisco Etxeberria, has determined that the body of Constancio Allende was transferred from the province of Guadalajara, although it has not been possible to determine from which of the six cemeteries, parish or special, of the area his remains were exhumed. The truth is that they entered the Cuelgamuros Valley on May 26, 1959.

“Today we have given Constancio Allende’s body to his grandchildren so that they can mourn him, and bury him next to their grandmother,” said the Secretary of State for Democratic Memory, who was accompanied by the Delegate of Government in the Basque Country, Marisol Garmendia; the director of the Institute of Memory, Coexistence and Human Rights ‘Gogora’, Alberto Alonso; and the aforementioned director of the Forensic Technical Team responsible for exhumations in the Cueletxuros Valley, Eberria.