Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo identified “grandson 132”

First modification: 29/12/2022 – 02:40

The news was received with a shower of applause inside the House for Identity, in what was the detention and torture center of the Esma (Navy Mechanics School) in the north of Buenos Aires. On Wednesday, December 28, the Grandmothers reported that they managed to restore their true identity to grandson number 132 stolen by the Argentine military dictatorship.

Juan Jose comes from the northern province of Tucumán, and in 2004 he had begun the search for his identity, after his foster brothers, after the death of his parents, revealed to him that he was not their biological son and gave him his document. original identity.

Juan was 9 months old when his mother, 21-year-old Mercedes del Valle Morales, was detained and disappeared by the military regime in 1976, along with her grandparents. Four days later, they kidnapped his uncles José Silvano Morales, Juan Ceferino Morales and Julio César Morales, all of whom have disappeared.

It was a maternal great-aunt, Máxima Rita Romero de Morales, who, with the return of democracy in 1983, denounced the disappearance of the entire family. Thanks to DNA studies at the National Genetic Data Bank, in 2008 the grandson was able to verify that Mercedes del Valle Morales was his mother, as it appeared on his DNI.

Some time later, the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team managed to identify the remains of Mercedes in the North Cemetery of Tucumán. But the identity of Juan Jose’s father is still unknown.

It is estimated that under the military dictatorship, around 500 children were illegally “appropriated” and given to a home that wanted or could not have children, often close to the regime, also with the idea of ​​raising a politically “correct” child.

Second refund in a week

The new identification takes place after the Grandmothers announced the discovery of “grandson 131” on Thursday, December 22, after almost three years without any new identification, so that of grandson 130 had been revealed in June 2019.

These refunds have been rare in part due to the Covid pandemic, which for many months made contact and investigation difficult.

Estela de Carlotto said at a press conference that “grandson number 131” is 44 years old, and was the son of former Marxist militants Lucía Nadín and Aldo Quevedo, natives of Mendoza, and arrested in Buenos Aires in October 1977. The young woman, who was then 19 years old, was almost three months pregnant.

The Grandmothers pointed out this Wednesday that, despite the pain that each of these stories brings, they continue to “celebrate life” with the joy that the “conquest of the truth” gives them and renewed their hopes for “a 2023 with more encounters , with more truths and identities”.

45 years of the Mothers and Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo

In 2022, the 45th anniversary of the existence of the non-governmental organization of the Mothers and Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo was celebrated, to “locate and restore to their legitimate families” all the children of their children who had disappeared since 1977.

For the other 300 children, who are now estimated to be between 40 and 45 years old, the search continues, even outside the Argentine borders. Each year between 1,000 and 1,200 blood samples are analyzed from people with doubts about their family history.

This year was also the year of the death of one of the central figures of the movement. Hebe de Bonafini, mother of two missing children, longtime defender and human rights activist, died on November 20 at the age of 93.

With EFE and local media