Aunt of 127th Child Stolen by Argentine Dictatorship: ‘We Have Been Waiting 40 Years’

The Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo group, the Argentine human rights organization searching for kidnapped babies during the U.S.-backed 1970s dictatorship, held a press conference Thursday, just a day after news that the 127th grandchild had been found.

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"Maria del Carmen and Carlos (her partner) were kidnapped in Cordoba. She was between eight and nine months pregnant,” explained Estela de Carlotto, the president of the organization. “The couple was seen by survivors in the clandestine detention center, La Perla, in Cordoba. Later Maria del Carmen was transferred to the ESMA where she gave birth to a little girl."

That girl, whose identity has not yet been released, is the 127th grandchild found. While the woman was first discovered in 2012, her identity was confirmed as the daughter of Maria and Carlos, over the course of the last few years.

The woman’s aunt, Elsa Poblete, said at the press conference that the families have been waiting 40 years for such news.

“We are going to let her take all the time in the world for her to process her situation, that we have been waiting for her for 40 years,” she said. “From this moment with open arms, with the love that we have built these 40 years, we love her."

The woman’s parents, Maria and Carlos, remain missing.

Carlotto told media that they had first been kidnapped in 1977 when Maria was just about to give birth. Maria was then shipped to the Navy Mechanical School (ESMA), Argentina's infamous secret detention center, where she eventually gave birth.

The Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo have held weekly marches in Buenos Aires’ central square in front of the Presidential Palace, the Plaza de Mayo, every Thursday since founding the organization in 1977 to search for children and grandchildren who were kidnapped and disappeared during the dictatorship.

Between 1976 and 1983, an estimated 30,000 people suspected of being against the military dictatorship of General Jorge Rafael Videla were disappeared and most of them remain unfound.

An additional 500 babies were born to activist mothers held captive by the military. Their children were then stolen by military families, sold or abandoned into government institutions.