Andalusia was one of the worst affected regions of Spain by Francisco Franco’s brutal campaign of mass-murder and political suppression called the White Terror during and after the Spanish Civil War. The Nationalist rebels bombed and seized the working-class districts of the main Andalusian cities in the first days of the war, and afterwards went on to execute thousands of workers and militants of the leftist parties: in the city of Córdoba 4,000; in the city of Granada 5,000; in the city of Seville 3,028; and in the city of Huelva 2,000 killed and 2,500 disappeared. The city of Málaga, occupied by the Nationalists in February 1937 following the Battle of Málaga, experienced one of the harshest repressions following Francoist victory with an estimated total of 17,000 people summarily executed. Carlos Arias Navarro, then a young lawyer who as public prosecutor signed thousands of execution warrants in the trials set up by the triumphant rightists, became known as “The Butcher of Málaga” (Carnicero de Málaga).

Paul Preston estimates the total number of victims of deliberately killed by the Nationalists in Andalusia at 55,000.