Remains of a Victim of the Uruguayan Dictatorship Found in Battalion 14
Relatives of politically disappeared people enter Batallion 14, Aug. 1, 2024. Photo: X/ @ObservadorUY
August 1, 2024 Hour: 12:47 pm
The body was found 170 meters from where the remains of Amelia Sanjurjo were discovered in 2023.
On Thursday, the “Mothers and Relatives of Uruguayan Detainees and Disappeared” entered Infantry Battalion No. 14 to verify the discovery of the remains of a person presumably murdered by the U.S.-backed dictatorship that ruled Uruguay between 1973 and 1985.
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The body was found 170 meters from where the remains of Amelia Sanjurjo, a leftist activist who disappeared in 1977, were discovered in 2023. The newly found human remains will be analyzed to determine preliminary data such as sex and age range.
Alicia Lusiardo, the anthropologist in charge of the excavations, explained that the body was found in a 90-centimeter-deep grave “face down,” on top of a layer of lime and beneath a “slab of gravel, lime, sand, and cement” that formed a “rigid structure above the body.”
“Part of the knees and feet are still on the plate, while the rest of the skeleton is already exposed. We need to remove that fragment of the plate and record the entire skeleton in its anatomical position as it was found,” she indicated.
While the burial pattern is similar to others where people disappeared during the dictatorship were found, this case presents some differences that could respond to “different time periods or different operations.”
The skeletal samples will be transferred to a laboratory in Cordoba, an Argentine city with specialists in forensic anthropology.
“I wish the identification could be immediate, but this takes time,” said Juan Ignacio Errandonea, a relative of the disappeared, adding that the situation evokes feelings of emotion, anguish, anxiety, and anger.
He demanded that the Armed Forces provide information and tell “the whole truth” to put an “end once and for all” to the ordeal experienced by the relatives of political prisoners and the disappeared.
Autor: teleSUR/ JF
Fuente: EFE - El Observador
