Connect with us

International

Argentine group finds 131st dictatorship-era ‘stolen’ child

Photo: Luis Robayo / AFP

| By AFP |

More than four decades after being taken from his parents — activists who “disappeared” under Argentina’s military dictatorship — a man raised by others has learned his true identity, an activist group has announced.  

The man is the 131st child “stolen” during the dictatorship era to be identified under a decades-long fight by the group known as the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo — and the first in nearly three years. 

His assumed identity has not been divulged.

“We are happy to announce a new restitution of identity,” the Grandmothers said in a statement Thursday after the man’s DNA tests came back. 

Advertisement
20250407_mh_renta_728x90
20250301_vacunacion_vph-728x90
20231124_etesal_728x90_1
20230601_agenda_primera_infancia_728X90
domfuturo_netview-728x90
20240604_dom_728x90
CEL
previous arrow
next arrow

“As if the end of the year wanted to fulfill all our wishes,” they said in reference to Argentina’s recent World Cup victory, “we celebrate the discovery of a new grandchild, number 131.” 

Almost 300 other men and women “living among us with falsified identities” after being taken from their parents under the 1976-1983 dictatorship remain to be found, the Grandmothers added. 

Now 44 years old, the man was the son of Marxist activists Lucia Nadin and Aldo Quevedo, from Mendoza, detained in Buenos Aires in October 1977.  

Nadin, 19, was nearly three months pregnant at the time.

Grandmothers president Estela de Carlotto, 92, told reporters Nadin likely gave birth to her son at the notorious Navy Mechanics School (ESMA), which served as the country’s largest detention and torture facility. 

Advertisement
20250407_mh_renta_728x90
20250301_vacunacion_vph-728x90
20231124_etesal_728x90_1
20230601_agenda_primera_infancia_728X90
domfuturo_netview-728x90
20240604_dom_728x90
CEL
previous arrow
next arrow

“We are told that he is a sweet, calm person,” de Carlotto said. “He (did not react) with refusal or sadness” to discovering his true identity.

But she said he would need time to fully digest the stunning news before being presented to the public.

“He just took it as a reality, a new reality for him,” said de Carlotto. 

30,000 people lost

The Grandmothers group was founded in 1977 by women trying to find their arrested daughters — and the babies they bore in captivity. 

They take their name from the Plaza de Mayo square in Buenos Aires, where women defied authorities to hold protests demanding information on the whereabouts of their loved ones. They did so in vain. 

Advertisement
20250407_mh_renta_728x90
20250301_vacunacion_vph-728x90
20231124_etesal_728x90_1
20230601_agenda_primera_infancia_728X90
domfuturo_netview-728x90
20240604_dom_728x90
CEL
previous arrow
next arrow

As many as 500 children were taken from their imprisoned mothers, most of whom then disappeared under the country’s brutal military rule. 

Most of the children were given to childless people close to the dictatorship, keen to have them raised as regime loyalists. 

Many of those aided by the Grandmothers reached out after experiencing doubt over their identity — because of a lack of physical resemblance to their parents, the absence of photos of their mothers while pregnant, or holes in the family history. 

This was the first new identification since June 2019. The coronavirus pandemic had put the brakes on the Grandmothers’ research and interviews with potential victims.

Six of the original grandmothers died during the pandemic.  

Advertisement
20250407_mh_renta_728x90
20250301_vacunacion_vph-728x90
20231124_etesal_728x90_1
20230601_agenda_primera_infancia_728X90
domfuturo_netview-728x90
20240604_dom_728x90
CEL
previous arrow
next arrow

Rights groups say some 30,000 people died or disappeared under Argentina’s military dictatorship.  

International

The Pope’s funeral procession through the center of Rome worries the Italian authorities

The complexity of the transfer of Pope Francis’ coffin through the center of Rome, from St. Peter’s Vatican to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, where he will be buried, is the main concern for the Italian authorities, the head of Civil Protection, Fabio Ciciliano, acknowledged on Thursday.

That part of the device, which will take place on Saturday after the funeral, presents important logistical, infrastructure and security challenges, the official admitted at a press conference, in which he also said that the number of faithful who will pass through the burning chapel before, about 61,000, will increase in the coming hours.

On Saturday, after the funeral, his body will be taken in a vehicle in a solemn passage to the Roman basilica of Santa María La Mayor, to be buried in a chapel, as the Argentine pontiff arranged in life, which will collapse the center of the Italian capital.

“I remember that the burial ceremony will be a private ceremony, while immediately after the faithful will be given the opportunity to reach the side of their holiness, and obviously the sustained concentration of faithful must be taken into great consideration,” said Ciciliano.

The route of this funeral procession, which will extend over six kilometers, will be analyzed today in a meeting by those responsible for the organization, who are carrying out a “complete evaluation”.

Ciciliano focused on the exceptional fact that Francisco’s death has coincided with the Jubilee year, and that this is also a time when Rome is usually full of tourists, so it is difficult to estimate the number of people who will attend to follow the funeral.

Despite warning that parallels cannot be established with the death of John Paul II in 2005, Ciciliano reiterated that “we are estimating around 200,000 people, although we do not know if they will be deployed in St. Peter’s Square or along the funeral procession” to Santa María la Mayor.

Meanwhile, the number of faithful who will pass through the burning chapel of Pope Francis, which until 1:00 p.m. this Thursday already amounted to 61,000, will rise significantly in the next few hours, until Friday it closes at 19.00 (17.00 GMT) for the ceremony of closing the coffin before the funeral on Saturday, he anticipated.

The person in charge drew attention to the significant drop in temperatures at night, so he called on the faithful to dress like “an onion” to be able to add or remove layers as needed.

Regarding the arrival of new faithful in Rome, he said that there are 260,000 seats available to travel by train, and that on the day of the funeral about 500 buses to the Italian capital are expected to arrive.

“There will be state, commercial and private flights that will arrive at Fiumicino and Ciampino airports. We have also maintained Pratica di Mare as an airfield,” he added.

He also referred to the reception of the hundreds of world leaders and authorities who will be in Rome to attend the funeral, including the president of the United States or the kings of Spain, which he considered “very complex.”

The preparations “are being developed in close collaboration with the Prefecture of Rome for those aspects related to security, since there are elements that overlap,” he said.

This difficulty grows due to the fact that after the funerals most of these leaders will return immediately, but others prefer to stay in the city.

After the funeral, the second phase of the Civil Protection deployment will be activated, which includes the conclave to elect the new pope, when the forecasts point to an even greater number of faithful, which will also coincide with other massive events such as the final of the Soccer Cup on May 14.

Continue Reading

International

A group of the poor and a delegation of migrants will participate in the funeral and burial of the pope on Saturday

A group of poor and needy and a delegation of migrants and rescuers will be present at the funeral and burial of Pope Francis this Saturday, April 26, as a last tribute to the pontiff, who was always close to the most disadvantaged and homeless people.

“A group of poor and needy people will be present on the steps that lead to the Papal Basilica of Santa María la Mayor to pay the last tribute to Pope Francis before the burial of the coffin,” the Vatican reported in a statement on Thursday.

 

Continue Reading

International

The Arab League supports Hamas handing over control of Gaza and weapons to the Palestinian Authority

The Arab League expressed on Thursday its support for the Hamas Islamist group handing over control of the Gaza Strip to the Government of the Palestinian National Authority (ANPA), of President Mahmud Abbas, who assured that he must be the only one who controls weapons and represents the Palestinians before the international community.

The pan-Arab organization expressed its position on Thursday in a statement issued after the Arab ministerial meeting held on Wednesday at the headquarters of the Arab League in Cairo, coinciding with a claim by Abbas that the ANP assumes political control of Gaza, and that Hamas releases the 59 Israeli hostages it still holds and lay down their arms.

“The Council of the Arab League affirmed its support for President Mahmoud Abbas’ vision regarding the importance of achieving national (Palestinian) unity based on the commitment to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO),” the main member of the ANP that governs in small areas of the occupied West Bank, said the statement of the organization composed of 22 states.

In the note, the agency avoided mentioning Hamas by name, although it stressed that the PLO is the “only legitimate representative of the Palestinian people”, and invited all Palestinian factions to “comply with the political program and international obligations” of the ANP.

He also insisted that the different Palestinian factions “comply with the principle of a (only) system (of government), a law and a legitimate weapon, and allow the Government (of the ANP) to assume the responsibilities of governance in Gaza within the framework of the political and geographical unity of the Palestinian territory occupied (by Israel) in 1967”.

On the other hand, the statement “categorically rejected any form of displacement of the Palestinian people from their land, under any name, circumstance or justification, considering this part of the crime of genocide” against the inhabitants of the strip, where more than 51,000 people died in Israeli attacks since October 2023.

The Arab Foreign Ministers expressed, on the other hand, their support for the conference that France and Saudi Arabia plan to hold next June under the auspices of the UN to support the “two-state solution”, one Palestinian next to the Israeli.

They also showed their support for the Egyptian plan, supported last March by Arab and Islamic countries, for the reconstruction of Gaza, and “urging countries and financial institutions to quickly provide the financial support necessary for its implementation.”

Hamas has controlled Gaza since its militiamen expelled the forces of the ANP Government from the Strip in 2007, controlled by the secular group Fatah, also from Abbas and majority within the PLO.

The enmity between Hamas and Fatah resides, in addition to ideological differences, in the discrepancies that when facing the defense of a Palestinian State, since while Islamists advocate armed struggle and “resistance” against the Israeli occupation, the ANP opts for politics and negotiations.

Continue Reading

Trending

Central News