Balbina Sánchez-Dehesa Francés

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Balbina Sánchez-Dehesa was 47 years old when she was killed in the attacks of 11 March 2004. She had been working as a draughtsperson for the company Vicasa since 1975, and took the train to Azuqueca de Henares each morning. She had been married for 22 years and had two children, aged 19 and 16. She regularly went to the town of Orgaz to visit her mother. She loved the countryside and nature and escaped to her house in the mountains whenever she could.

11 March 2004 fell on a Thursday. Early that morning, a number of terrorists with links to Al-Qaeda planted thirteen bombs on four suburban trains covering routes running through Madrid. Ten of the bombs exploded between 7.37 and 7.39 am, when the trains were at Atocha, El Pozo and Santa Eugenia stations and alongside Calle Téllez. 191 people were killed in the attack and around 1,500 were wounded. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in Spanish history. On 3 April 2004, agents from the Special Operations Group (GEO) were about to enter an apartment in Leganés where the perpetrators of the attacks were believed to be hiding when the terrorists detonated twenty kilograms of explosives in an act of collective suicide. The ensuing blast killed one of the officers, bringing the total number of people killed by the 11 March bombers to 192.

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