Overview
- Thousands visited cemeteries from Spain to Latin America under extended opening hours, with municipalities organizing cleaning, transit control, health support and vendor management.
- Madrid deployed 1,650 municipal police across the long weekend, with more than 900 focused on cemetery access and safety, used aerial-monitoring drones at La Almudena and Sur‑Carabanchel, extended hours to 08:00, and added EMT buses.
- Servicios Funerarios de Madrid logged 34 incidents over the past year, 68% linked to ornament thefts, with recent arrests including a father and son found with 32 bronze crucifixes and past mass thefts from niches.
- PSOE‑M councilor Ignacio Benito proposed police drones to detect thefts and an updated image inventory of funerary ornaments to quickly identify missing pieces; officials acknowledge some thefts go unreported to SFM.
- Cities highlighted maintenance and heritage: Toledo recovered 31 multi‑coffin burial spaces and began stabilizing a perimeter wall, and Vigo’s Pereiró drew heavy visitation with guided routes and a cultural exhibition.