María Pilar Quesada Araque

Description

At 7.05 pm on the evening of 29 May 1991, several ETA members pushed a car bomb containing twelve gas bottles, each containing eighteen kilograms of ammonal into the courtyard of the Civil Guard Barracks in Vic (Barcelona). At that time of day, many of the civil guards’ family members were in their homes and several children were playing in the courtyard.

Once the car, with reverse gear locked, was in the courtyard, terrorist Juan Carlos Monteagudo detonated the explosives by remote control. As a direct result of the explosion, nine people were killed, five of them children, and another 44 were wounded. The General Hospital in Vic was overwhelmed by the number of victims and some of the wounded had to be flown to other hospitals in Barcelona by helicopter.

Amongst the nine people killed by the explosion was María Pilar Quesada-Araque, who was playing in the courtyard of the barracks in Vic when the bomb went off. María Pilar studied at the Sagrat Cor school, a few metres from her home at the barracks. She was due to celebrate her first communion at the school on the following Sunday.

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