After the frustrating hiatus forced by the new coronavirus pandemic, the Argentine organization Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo announced on Thursday the identification of a new grandson -number 131-, who was taken from his mother as a newborn during the last military dictatorship ( 1976-1983).
“As if the end of the year had insisted on fulfilling wishes, after three years, we once again celebrate the discovery of a new grandson,” Estela de Carlotto, who heads Abuelas, the humanitarian organization that looks for children who they were stolen by the repressors from people murdered and disappeared during the de facto government.
President Alberto Fernandez and the vice president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner They celebrated on their Twitter accounts that more and more people know their origins and praised the “example of struggle and humanity” of the Grandmothers.
Carlotto indicated that there are suspicions that the 44-year-old man who recovered his identity could have been born at the Navy Mechanics School (ESMA), one of the largest repression centers in Buenos Aires where they held women who gave birth to their babies who were later taken by the military or people related to the regime.
De Carlotto did not specify more information about the recovered grandson, but indicated that he is the son of Lucía Nadín and Aldo Hugo Quevedo, who were active in the Workers’ Revolutionary Party and the People’s Revolutionary Army (PRT-ERP).
The two were kidnapped between September and October 1977 in Buenos Aires and she was about two months pregnant.
Both remained detained in the “Club Atlético” and “El Banco” illegal detention centers. Through testimonies of survivors, it was learned that Lucía was removed from that last place between March and April 1978 to give birth elsewhere.
The identification of the man was possible thanks to DNA samples from relatives of his mother.
Lucía’s family did not know she was pregnant when she was kidnapped. Over time they were able to find out about the news from information that was reaching them through people who were with the couple before their arrest.
The Nadin family left their sample in the National Genetic Data Bank in 2005 and years later the National Commission for the Right to Identity (Conadi) managed to find the brother of the young woman’s partner and added his profile to the Bank.
In 2015, based on the investigation by Abuelas and Conadi, a man was identified who could be the son of disappeared persons.
After an unsuccessful attempt to contact him, the Specialized Unit for Cases of Child Appropriation during State Terrorism filed a complaint with the courts, which managed to locate him in September and invited him to undergo a genetic study, which he accepted.
The head of Grandmothers pointed out that there are still “almost 300 men and women who live with their falsified identity” and expressed her hope for a year “2023 with more restitutions”.
Since the novel coronavirus pandemic began in March 2020, the organization had not identified any more grandchildren.
The recovery of grandson 130, Javier Matías Darroux Mijalchuck, was announced in 2019. His parents disappeared in December 1977.
De Carlotto said that the isolation and the endless restrictions of the pandemic left many people ill. He noted that, however, Abuelas continued to work “not directly, but informally through the teams that we have to contribute to the search.”
Some 30,000 people disappeared during the last dictatorship, according to human rights organizations in Argentina.
