The Navarro Institute of Memory has been able to identify Leoncio de la Fuente Ramos, a prisoner and fugitive of the fort of San Cristobal of Mount Ezkaba, who was killed in Larrasoaña on May 22, 1938. The DNA, promoted by the Government of Navarra in 2016, has been obtained through samples obtained by the public bank. This is the first DNA identification obtained without previous hypotheses about the identity of the exhumed remains.

In July 2018, the Government of Navarra found four bodies of prisoners fleeing the Fort of San Cristobal and managed to exhume them. This intervention was made possible by the testimony of Paulina Lizoain. Paulina, a neighbour of Lizoain, witnessed the events and found that she was a young girl. The 89-year-old woman wanted to testify when the corpses were exhumed in the Steribar Valley by the Government of Navarra.

Leoncio de la Fuente Ramos, from Fresno el Viejo (Valladolid), married and father of six children, has been identified thanks to a sample of DNA that his daughter has inherited. He is a 36-year-old tailor who came to the fortress of San Cristobal on August 22, 1937. The son of Valladolid was one of the protagonists of the massive flight of 22 May 1938, as he was among the 796 prisoners. However, 206 of these prisoners were captured and killed immediately, as in the case of Leoncio de la Fuente and his unknown comrades. They were arrested in the area of Larrasoaña, killed and buried near the cemetery, where they were buried.

By way of a note, the Government of Navarra has thanked relatives, researchers and associations working in Navarre. In particular, he has been particularly grateful to the Txinparta-Fuerte association of San Cristobal, which since the end of the 1980s has been working to recover the memory of this conviction and has contacted the relatives of the prisoners who passed there. "Thanks to the work of this association, we have had the opportunity to contact the family of Leoncio de la Fuente, and thus we have obtained a genetic sample that has been decisive for identification," he stressed.

The Government of Navarra has acknowledged that these works carried out by the genetic laboratory of the public company Nasertic have become "difficult" due to the "low level of conservation" of many bones. But the identifications would be impossible if the genetic samples of the relatives of the murdered people were not distributed throughout the peninsular territory", he stressed. In fact, the DNA Bank of Navarra has received more than 230 family members of cancer since its inception in 2016. The Navarro Institute of Memory has called for collaboration to identify potential graves and families of refugees, so that new identification with genetic samples can be carried out.

Mass leakage

The escape of the Ezkaba fort was one of the largest in Europe. 796 prisoners withdrew their weapons from the guards, took control of the prison and managed to escape. They had some 2500 people incarcerated, who knew themselves in precarious conditions. There were prisoners of war, political and social prisoners. Between 1937 and 1945 more than 300 prisoners died from the living conditions of the population. In the afternoon of May 22, 1938, several prisoners rose up and, in half an hour, took control of the prison. When the Franco authorities realized, the fugitives started hunting. Only 3 of the 796 soccer players managed to cross the border. In total, 585 people were arrested and 187 were killed. In addition, there are another 24 unidentified deaths. Among them are those who hid in the mountain fleeing from Francoist repression, including Leoncio de la Fuente Ramos.