Foreign influencers in southern Spain
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There are a number of tributes to the Canadian doctor, photographer and communist Norman Bethune in Malaga province, including in Torre del Mar, Benalmádena and Puerto de la Torre.
During Spain's Civil War, Bethune along with a team of medical staff, came to the aid of the thousands of people fleeing Malaga during a particularly dark chapter known as the 'Desbandá'.
On 8 February 1937, Spanish, Italian and German warships and planes opened fire on those trying to escape along the coastal road, today known as the N-340, and thousands were injured or killed in the massacre.
Bethune and his team would take those most in need to Almeria by ambulance to give them blood transfusions and other medical help.
Bethune's photographs are the only visual documentation of the events and they have been exhibited widely in different parts of the province. He later went on to write his account of the events in his book, The Crime on the Road, Malaga-Almeria.
In 2022 to coincide with the 85th anniversary of the Desbandá, Benalmádena town hall named a roundabout located at the junction of Avenida Federico García Lorca and Avenida de la Constitución in Arroyo de la Miel in honour of Bethune.
On the other side of the province, on a roundabout at the Río Seco river which forms the natural border between Torre del Mar and Caleta de Vélez, a statue was unveiled in February 2016, also coinciding with an anniversary of the events of 1937. The statue depicts Bethune with a child refugee holding on to the back of his jacket.
There is also a street named after the doctor in Puerto de la Torre in Malaga and an avenue with his name in Motril in Granada province.
Bethune was born in Ontario on 4 March 1890 and died in 1939 of blood poisoning in China after accidentally cutting his finger while operating. He had gone to China after leaving Spain in 1938 and joined the Chinese Communists where he operated on war casualties and provided training for doctors and nurses.
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