Since 2023, EAAF has had a branch in Madrid. It is registered with Spain’s National Registry of Associations (Registro Nacional de Asociaciones). The relationship between EAAF and various Spanish institutions has been growing since 2004, and it encompasses several areas of work: historical memory and victims of the Spanish Civil War; ongoing training for Spanish forensic physicians; and, with regard to crimes against humanity, coordinating the collection of genetic samples in Spain from relatives of persons disappeared in Argentina and shipping them to EAAF’s genetic laboratory. There is also a census of Spanish citizens forcibly disappeared in Argentina during the last military dictatorship, and the Europe-Africa Border Project (2024-2027).
Collaboration with institutions
Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica, ARMH): from 2004 to the present, pro bono consulting and support on genetic analysis aimed at identifying Civil War victims in various cases. Notably, this includes EAAF’s official participation in the genetic analysis of several cases contained in the Argentine lawsuit against the Franco regime’s crimes, initiated by Argentine judge María Romilda Servini de Cubría based on the principle of universal jurisdiction in April 2010.
Spanish National Research Council (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, CSIC): participation in the “Policies for Memory” (“Las Políticas de la Memoria”) project from 2010 to 2017.
Centre for Legal Studies (Centro de Estudios Jurídicos, CEJ), under the Spanish Ministry of Justice: from 2008 to 2010 – in the framework of the memorandum of understanding signed by the Spanish and Argentine Justice Ministries regarding the search for people disappeared in Argentina during the last military dictatorship, and as part of CEJ’s continuing education program – EAAF conducted a series of theoretical and practical courses on forensic anthropology for members of the Spanish Justice Ministry’s National Corps of Forensic Physicians (Colectivo del Cuerpo Nacional de Médicos Forenses). These courses took place at EAAF’s headquarters as well as in Madrid and Santander. In April 2025, a new CEJ course was offered in conjunction with the Pathology Department at the Forensic Medicine Institute (Instituto de Medicina Legal) in Madrid, on an “Interdisciplinary Approach to Corpses in Poor Condition” (“Abordaje Interdisciplinar de Cadáveres en Mal Estado”).
Commission on Spaniards Disappeared in Argentina (Comisión de Españoles Desaparecidos en Argentina): Since 2008, EAAF has been working with this commission to compile a census of Spaniards who were forcibly disappeared in Argentina during the last military dictatorship. This list was eventually expanded to include the archives of the Spanish Embassy in Buenos Aires and was officially submitted in December 2022 by the embassy’s counselor to the Secretariat of State for Democratic Memory at the Spanish Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory for publication in the official state gazette (Boletín Oficial del Estado, BOE).
In March 2026, which marked the 50th anniversary of the military coup in Argentina, the Secretariat of State for Democratic Memory requested that EAAF submit the latest version of this list, which was included in the Institutional Declaration in Recognition of the Spanish Victims of the Argentine Dictatorship, approved by the Spanish Council of Ministers on March 24, 2026 (Order PJC/267/2026) and published in the official state gazette on March 25, 2026 (BOE 74, provision 6933).
Europe-Africa Border Project
Since 2024, EAAF’s branches in Spain and Africa have been working on a joint project to assess the possibilities and plan the feasibility of implementing a mechanism for the forensic identification of migrants who have died along the migration corridor stretching from northwestern Africa to Spain, modeled on the Border Project that EAAF is carrying out along the Central America-Mexico-United States corridor.
This project – co-funded by Switzerland’s Federal Government and EAAF, in partnership with the University of Chicago’s Human Rights Clinic – conducted a pilot feasibility study in 2024-2025. It is currently in its second implementation phase (2025-2027), in coordination with IOM, the ICRC and EuroMed Rights.
In 2024, EAAF – in cooperation with the director of the Pathology Unit at the Forensic Medicine Institute in Madrid and the Spanish Society of Forensic Pathology (Sociedad Española de Patología Forense, SEPAF) – organized a Technical Working Group composed of the heads of the Pathology Services at the Forensic Medicine Institutes in the border regions of Spain most affected by this issue (Canary Islands, Andalusia, Murcia, Valencian Community, Ceuta, Melilla and the Balearic Islands). It aimed to establish a forum for debate and for standardizing criteria in the process of identifying migrants who have died at the border.
Through in-person technical meetings (funded by EAAF) and virtual ones, the Working Group developed a series of conclusions and recommendations addressed to the Spanish Ministry of Justice, and to the office of the Ombudsman (Defensor del Pueblo), regarding the identification of deceased migrants. In May 2025, the Working Group completed the Proposed Protocol for Forensic Pathology Services in the Management and Identification of Deceased Migrants at the Border, which was formally submitted to the Justice Ministry for approval and implementation.
