MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Replica of the flag shown by Argentina's football team unfurled at Darwin cemetery

The delegation spent a week in the islands and visited Stanley, the Darwin cemetery and various sites of the 1982 fighting

A group of Argentine veterans of the 1982 war and relatives of fallen soldiers unfurled at the Darwin cemetery in the Falklands a flag bearing the inscription “The Malvinas are Argentine”, a design the Argentine press describes as a reproduction of the one displayed by Argentina's national football team after defeating England at the 2026 World Cup. It is the first time the emblem has been displayed in the archipelago.

The delegation spent a week in the islands and visited Stanley, the Darwin cemetery and various sites of the 1982 fighting. The two Argentine outlets that covered the trip differ on its composition: one describes a group of eleven veterans and relatives from the Agrupación 2 de Abril, based in Avellaneda, while the other mentions participants from La Matanza, La Plata and Córdoba. For several of them it was the first time they had set foot in the archipelago since the conflict. During the tribute they sang the national anthem before the graves and left letters, flowers, football shirts and rosaries.

The Darwin cemetery holds 230 graves. Of these, 121 plots contained 122 unidentified bodies, marked with the inscription “Argentine soldier known only to God”. In December 2016, Argentina and the United Kingdom tasked the International Committee of the Red Cross, together with the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team, with identifying them. Exhumations took place between June and August 2017, and the first report, in December that year, identified 88 bodies; the plaques were installed in March 2018. As of April 2025, 117 had been identified and five remained outstanding.

Among the relatives travelling was Gramisci, sister of Donato, killed in combat days before Argentina's surrender and whose remains were identified in 2018. “I think this is his place. Even though he is far from his family, far from what was his home, it is the place where he, without choosing it, chose to be,” she said. Argentina rejected repatriations at the time, arguing the soldiers were already buried on its own territory, which has made the cemetery a recurring destination for family visits over the past two decades.

Ramón Robles, who leads the group and fought near the cemetery's present location, described the trip as “humanitarian, to close chapters”. He said he applies for a new passport after each visit so as not to retain the stamp of the archipelago's authorities, which he regards as recognition of British administration. According to EFE's coverage, members of the group agreed in dismissing President Javier Milei's recent sovereignty measures as inconsequential; that assessment appears as the reporter's summary rather than a quote attributed to any individual.

The 1982 war left 649 Argentine dead, 255 British and three residents of the archipelago.