Civil War Monument to British Volunteers Stolen

A monument to the British dead at one of the bloodiest encounters of the Spanish civil war has been torn down and carried away by rightwing extremists.

The monument is a huge stone plaque to 90 British volunteers in the International Brigades who were killed during the Battle of the Ebro.

The plaque names each of those who died while defending Republican Spain against a rightwing military uprising. "They died fighting for the liberty of Spain," it says.

Now the spot where it had stood for two years has been covered in graffiti left by the present-day supporters of the extreme right Falange party. "The Falange is still fighting," reads the graffiti in large red letters.

The Falange provided the political backbone to General Francisco Franco's fascist-backed forces during the war but is now fractured into several parties that play no significant role in Spanish politics.

Angela Jackson, a British historian who helped raise the monument, said it sat at the end of a winding road on a remote hilltop near the eastern village of Pinell de Brai.

"It took four burly men to get it up there, so they must have been fairly well organised," she said. "It is upsetting to the survivors and for many other people."

Campaigners have already vowed to replace the monument, and to continue doing so if it is torn down and removed again.

Some 2,300 British volunteers joined the International Brigades after the civil war broke out in 1936. More than 500 were killed and many more injured during the failed attempt to stop the forces led by General Franco, with help from Hitler and Mussolini, from imposing a military dictatorship.

Following the almost 40 years of Francoist dictatorship and the re-establishment of democracy, the international brigaders have been welcomed back to Spain, and have the right to take on Spanish nationality.