Without doubt the greatest civilian massacre of the Spanish Civil War occurred along what is today the N-340 between Málaga and Almería; around 20,000 people lost their lives.
La desbandada means a disorderly flight, but with a capital ‘D’ it refers to this particular incident in 1937 when Franco’s rebel forces broke through from Málaga, causing thousands of civilians to flee in panic, along a narrow coastal road. The persecution was merciless, with the column of bedraggled civilians mixed with retreating Republican militia being shelled from the sea by the heavy guns of a rebel cruiser and strafed and bombed by rebel aircraft.
It was a tactic, having been perfected by fascist forces in Spain, later to be used by the German blitzkrieg – jamming roads with terrified civilians to bog down the enemy’s back lines, preventing reinforcements or orderly retreat. Although the tale of the ruthless aerial bombardment of Guernika swept around the world, the casualties there were nothing by comparison.
Having spoken with survivors from the Desbandada; a man who was a mere child who can still recall images of corpses in the roadside ditches, of a mother cradling a dead child and of a direct hit on a militia car by naval shells, it brings it home just how much horror people underwent on along that road during the time that it took the refugees to reach the Republican front lines just between Salobreña and Motril.
During all the time of Franco’s regime people could not even talk in public about what happened, much less erect a monument in the victims’ memory. Only now, over 30 years after the return of democracy is this sad event commemorated each year, and as sad as it might seem, you will not see many, if any, right-wing politicians taking part.
Now, the Junta de Andalucía has erected a monument to the victims of the Desbandada at the mouth of the Guadalfeo in Salobreña. Why there? Because 1937 the river had become swollen with flood water, raging from bank to bank, leaving the tired and desperate refugees with the choice of turning around and facing the wrath of Franco’s soldiers or attempting to swim the rivers; many attempted the latter, some made it but just as many didn’t. In fact, the only thing that stopped Franco’s forces driving the Republicans back into Almería was the flood-water-swollen Guadalfeo. From then on the front line between the two opposing forces settled down until the end of the war in 1939.
(News: Salobrena, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)