A MAGISTRATE investigating the human rights crimes of Gen Francisco Franco has ordered an inquiry into the fate of children kidnapped from left-wing families by the dictator's henchmen.
Controversial magistrate Baltasar Garzon has asked judges to add the missing children to more than 136,000 cases of people who disappeared under the Franco regime.
An unknown number of children were allegedly stolen from "red" families by Franco's supporters, but details of individual cases have recently been sent to courts in Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Valencia, Burgos, Malaga and Zaragoza.
Campaigners say thousands of children were taken from mothers, especially those in jail, and put in orphanages in the early years of Franco's 36-year dictatorship. Some had their surnames changed and were never traced.
The investigation adds a new line of attack in Mr Garzon's attempts to have the Franco regime and its henchmen formally accused of perpetrating crimes against humanity.
It mirrors the investigations into children taken from left-wing captives in Argentina and given to people loyal to the military juntas that ruled there in the 1970s.
Like many of Spain's stolen children, Uxeno Alvarez was sent to an orphanage, where he was continually punished.
"When the other children went out for a walk they would leave me behind and make me clean 50 pairs of shoes," he said in the recent documentary The Missing Children of Francoism.
"It took me time to understand why. They hated me. I was the son of a 'red'."
At least 12,000 children whose parents had died during the civil war or who had been executed by the Franco regime were in state or religious orphanages in 1944. Some have put the number at as high as 30,000. - (Guardian service)