Spain and officials from the European Union paid tribute on Monday to the 192 victims of the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings that marked the start of mass terror attacks in Europe (see below for full details of the 2004 attack).
Organised by Brussels, 11 March has become the annual European Remembrance Day for Victims of Terrorism – and this year the ceremony was held in Madrid, on the 20th anniversary of the commuter train bombings in the Spanish capital.
Spain’s King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia presided over the official ceremony held just after noon in the Royal Collections Gallery, a museum near the palace. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, senior European officials, and survivors and family members of victims from several European countries, were present.
Victims of terror attacks are a symbol of the constant need to guard freedom and the rule of law against threats, Felipe told officials attending the ceremony.
‘Remembering, just like justice and truth, is a commitment that cities make to terror victims, to restore and protect their dignity,’ he said.
‘You paid the price for the hate aimed at our values, our societies, our democracies,’ European home affairs commisioner Ylva Johansson told the survivors. ‘You are not alone.’
‘This is a day of remembrance … although we cannot bring back the lives that were so violently taken … we can and must keep their memory alive,’ Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez told survivors and families of the victims at the official ceremony.
Sánchez also compared memories of the Madrid attacks with others in New York, London and Paris. ‘Anyone who has experienced such extreme violence first hand will never forget it,’ he said.
The prime minister also paid tribute to the nearly 2,000 others hurt in the 10 explosions on four commuter trains, ‘who survived but whose wounds have never healed’.
Madrid mayor José Luis Martínez Almeida described 11 March 2004 as ‘a day of wickedness’ that had ’caused immense pain and profound sadness but (…) didn’t manage to bring Madrid to its knees’.
Madrid Train Bombings – 11 March 2004
Today (11 March) marks 20 years since 10 bombs exploded nearly simultaneously on four commuter trains in Madrid during the morning rush hour, killing 192 people and injuring almost 2,000.
It was a huge shock for Spain, which had experienced decades of violence at the hands of the Basque separatist group ETA but had never been hit by an Islamist attack of such magnitude.
At the main Atocha station in central Madrid, close to the Prado Museum, three almost simultaneous explosions ripped apart a train that had just arrived from Alcalá de Henares, a Madrid suburb, at 7.37 am.
Hundreds of passengers were hurled to the floor or against the walls of the carriages by the blast, with bloody victims crawling from mangled wreckages as other panicked commuters on the platform fled to the escalators in a cloud of smoke.
In the minutes that followed, seven more bombs exploded on three other trains that had also left Alcalá de Henares — one which was waiting to enter Atocha, and two others at El Pozo and Santa Eugenia, both nearby stations.
In one of Atocha’s huge halls, forensic pathologists worked to identify victims as taxis helped ambulances ferry the injured to hospital.
Some victims wandered through the city in a state of shock for several hours before getting medical attention.
Several hours later, the right-wing People’s Party (PP) government of prime minister José María Aznar publicly blamed ETA – which had carried out dozens of deadly attacks over the past decades.
Several specialists raised the possibility that the attacks may have been orchestrated by Islamic extremists but the idea was dismissed by the interior minister as ‘misleading’.
At the time, Spain was in the final days of campaigning ahead of the 14 March election, with the country deeply divided over the government’s decision to join the US-led war in Iraq which began the previous year.
But doubt was soon cast on the ETA hypothesis when hours after the attacks, investigators found a stolen minivan in Alcala de Henares that contained seven detonators and a tape of Koranic verses.
Two days later, a videotape was found in a bin near Madrid’s main mosque with a message claiming responsibility for attacks in the name of ‘Al-Qaeda in Europe’ as punishment for Spain’s involvement in the Iraq war.
The shock caused by the attacks – the deadliest ever on Spanish soil – weakened the PP which came under fire for insisting ETA was to blame, despite mounting evidence to the contrary.
On 12 March, some 11.6 million people joined massive nationwide demonstrations in protest at the attacks, with many chanting slogans expressing doubt over the government’s version of events.
The PP was defeated in the election by José Luis Zapatero’s socialists (PSOE), who promptly withdrew Spain’s troops from Iraq once he was sworn in as prime minister.
For years after the attacks, top PP officials continued to cast doubt on the Islamist nature of the bombings, helping to fuel conspiracy theories.
Three weeks after the bombings, seven suspected members of the cell involved in the carnage blew themselves up in an apartment where they had been hiding in Leganes on the southwestern outskirts of Madrid.
After a three-year investigation, 29 other suspects went on trial in early 2007. Most were Moroccan nationals who were living in a working-class neighbourhood of Madrid, but there were also several Spaniards, a Syrian and an Egyptian. At the end of the six-month trial, 18 men were convicted.
Three of them – Jamal Zougam, Othman el Gnaoui and José Emilio Suárez Trashorras – received vast, symbolic sentences of over 30,000 years in prison. Only these three remain in jail.
Hoy, 20 años después del mayor atentado terrorista de la historia de España, conmemoramos el Día Europeo de las Víctimas del Terrorismo.
— Pedro Sánchez (@sanchezcastejon) March 11, 2024
Que los valores de paz, convivencia, verdad, justicia y reparación nos guíen frente al fanatismo, la sinrazón y la intolerancia.
Siempre… pic.twitter.com/OptzEc3gbR
El Rey, en el Día Europeo en recuerdo a las Víctimas del Terrorismo
— Casa de S.M. el Rey (@CasaReal) March 11, 2024
🗨️ Las víctimas del terrorismo son una referencia ética en nuestros sistemas democráticos y de valores humanos, simbolizan la permanente necesidad y compromiso de defensa de la libertad y del Estado de Derecho. pic.twitter.com/BkeRnjd2y9
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