Two military personnel from the Bayo expedition located at the Son Servera cemetery
The remains correspond to two men and the recovered materials point out that they would have formed part of the republican forces that landed in Mallorca in August 1936
Son ServeraThe excavations being carried out at the municipal cemetery of Son Servera have made it possible to locate the remains of two men who all indications suggest were soldiers of the Republican expedition commanded by Captain Alberto Bayo. Although anthropological and genetic studies will still need to be completed, the objects and materials found associated with the bodies suggest that they were two soldiers of a certain rank who participated in the landing in Mallorca during the first weeks of the Civil War. The remains of the uniforms allow us to advance that one of the two men was a military medic.
The discovery was made within the framework of the new phase of excavations started this September as part of the V Plan for Graves of the Balearic Islands. The Director General of Institutional Relations and the Parliament, Xesca Ramis, visited the work being carried out at the cemetery this Monday by the specialized team from the UTE formed by the Aranzadi Science Society and ATICS. The coordinator of the V Plan for Graves, Cesc Busquets, gave the details of the findings.
The intervention provides continuity to the excavations begun last April in different parts of the burial site.
Bayo's expedition landed on the Llevant coast on August 16, 1936, with the aim of recovering Mallorca for the Republic. The fighting, which especially affected the municipalities of Manacor, Sant Llorenç des Cardassar, and Son Servera, lasted until the withdrawal of the republican troops at the beginning of September. Many of the militiamen who died during the clashes or were executed after the withdrawal were buried in graves and have not yet been located.
Current work has also been extended to several private farms in the municipality identified through documentation and oral testimonies. Last July, the 5th Grave Plan intervened at Comellar Fondo, also in the municipality of Son Servera, where it was believed that combatants who died in the clashes at Puig de Son Corb could have been buried, but the surveys allowed for the existence of a mass grave to be ruled out there.
The finding coincides with the 90th anniversary of the murder in Manacor of the sisters Dària and Mercè Buxadé Adroher, two young volunteer nurses who were also part of the republican expedition. Captured after the withdrawal, they were murdered by fascist troops on the dawn of September 5, 1936, along with three other female militia members. This weekend, Santa Coloma de Farners, the municipality of their family's origin, paid tribute to them with various memorial events.