Patxi Jaka Bikandi, José Martín Arrieta Ikaran, Martín Fabo Colera, Ramón Crespo Ortiz, Fernando Lahera Urrutia and Inazio Lopetegi. These six warriors and militiamen have been able to recover their bones once they have been genetically identified.

In the first case, in Gamiz-Fika, in 2019, the bones of Patxi Jaka, a member of the Republican Left, were unearthed and known for their existence thanks to the DNA bank of the Gogoratuz Institute. The other five were recovered in excavations carried out in March 2022 at the Begoña cemetery in Bilbao.

In Begoña, 43 people were found to be stranded, of whom, in the case of five, thanks to the chaplains carried by the warriors and militiamen, they were able to know their names and address their relatives. They are all Republicans who died in the defense of Bilbao in the spring of 1937.

The Basque Government has organised a bone delivery event on Saturday in Bilbao, at the headquarters of the Gogoratuz Institute. In addition to the victims’ families, the Minister for Equality, Justice and Social Policies, Beatriz Artolazabal, the director of the Gogoan Institute, Aitzane Ezenarro, representatives of the municipalities of Bilbao and Gamiz-Fika, members of the Society of Aranzadi Sciences and the UPV, as well as representatives of the countries of origin.