DNA testing have verified that a guy was stolen from his mother as an infant during Argentina’s dictatorship, bringing the total number of such cases to 131, according to a human rights group.
Estela de Carlotto, president of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, stated during a press conference that the unnamed man was determined to be the biological son of Luca ngeles Nadn and Aldo Hugo Quevedo.
Mendoza natives Nadn and Quevedo belonged to an armed communist group and were imprisoned in the Argentine city of Buenos Aires in late 1977. At the time, Nadn was perhaps two or three months pregnant.
According to the testimony of survivors, Nadn was removed from the detention center where she was imprisoned in March and April 1978 in order to give birth. She and Quevedo have not been located.
The leader of Abuelas, Estela de Carlotto, embraces fellow activists in their offices at the former torture center ESMA on December 22, 2022 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo announced the identification of a new grandchild, 131, who was kidnapped from his mother as an infant during the previous military dictatorship. Victor R. Caivano / AP
During the violent dictatorship of 1976-1983, military personnel stole newborns from political prisoners who were frequently killed without a trace.
During the so-called “dirty war,” the dictatorship was known for human rights crimes. At least 30,000 individuals were slain by the military, some of them were tortured and then thrown out of airplanes into the ocean. Thousands more were just tortured as the regime pursued actual and imagined “subversives” and attempted to suppress any form of protest.
The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo estimate that over 500 children were kidnapped from their parents during the dictatorship and employ DNA testing to locate them.
In 2005, the family of Nadn, who did not know she was pregnant at the time of her abduction, submitted DNA samples to a national genetic database.
In September 2022, a man suspected of being the offspring of parents who had vanished was located as a result of a judicial probe. He decided to undergo a genetic test, and his identity as the son of Nadn and Quevedo was established on Wednesday, according to de Carlotto.
In June 2019, it was confirmed that Javier Matas Darroux Mijalchukis was the biological son of Elena Mijalchuk and Juan Manuel Darroux, both of whom are still missing. This was the last time the rights group identified a person who was taken from their parents during the dictatorship.
“Despite the pandemic, we continue to work every day with the hope and conviction that we will find our grandsons and granddaughters,” de Carlotto added. “Hundreds of men and women with origins in question have approached us.”
Almost the past four years, over 2,000 individuals with identification concerns have undertaken DNA testing, she added.
“It is a quiet, patient, and compassionate effort, but we still have a long way to go, and regrettably, time does not stand still,” de Carlotto remarked. “Over the past few years, we’ve had to bid farewell to dear friends, and many of them were never able to give us the well-deserved embrace.”
In 2014, an Argentine mom was reunited with her stolen infant grandson. Two months after giving birth, the man’s mother, a university activist, was killed in a secret military prison in August 1978.
And in 2010, after a 33-year search, an Argentine man who was abducted at birth finally met his father.
»DNA testing corroborate the theft of 131st infant during Argentina’s “dirty war.”«