International brigades honored 80 years after bloodiest Civil War battle

The International Brigades were honored in southern Catalonia on Sunday in a ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Ebre, the bloodiest in the Spanish Civil War.

Following the 1936 military coup against the democratically elected government of the Second Republic, thousands of volunteers from all across the world followed the call from the Communist International and traveled to Spain to stand against the fascist troops.

Some 40 people from the United States, Holland, Scotland, Germany and Russia attended the ceremony in Fatarella, Terra Alta, on behalf of their relatives who joined the brigades and fought in the war.