MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina formally requests to exhume a collective grave at the military cemetery in the Falklands

The Argentine military cemetery at Darwin where the remains of 115 combatants have been so far identified

The Argentine government has formally requested the International Committee of the Red Cross, ICRC, for an expansion of the humanitarian project which has helped so far to identify the remains of 115 Argentine combatants buried at the Argentine Military Cemetery at Darwin in the Falkland Islands.

The request refers to the exhumation of remains in a common grave which apparently holds more than the combatant named in the white cross and black marble plate.

In a letter addressed by Argentine foreign minister Jorge Faurie to the ICRC president, Peter Maurer, the Argentine government “formally requests the intermediation of neutral ICRC, to facilitate the clarification of the situation in multiple grave C.1.10 at the Darwin cemetery in the Malvinas Islands”, according to an official release.

The grave holds the remains of a lieutenant from the Gendarmerie, Julio Ricardo Sánchez, and another three combatants killed during the invasion and occupation of the Islands in 1982

The existence of the so called multiple graves has been a recurrent issue among the relatives of the fallen soldiers and Malvinas veterans when they travel to visit their next of kin at the Argentine military cemetery in Darwin.