Argentine “stolen baby” reunited with grandmother after 39 years

After a search that’s taken almost 40 years, Chicha Mariani has at last been reunited with her granddaughter, Clara.

Clara was one of Argentina’s “Stolen babies” – children snatched by the military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1976 to 1983.

Chicha founded the Grandmothers of May Square in 1977 to help find those missing children. She also kept attention on Clara’s case through a series of open letters.

“They tried to convince me that you were killed along with your mother, but I knew you were alive,” she wrote in one letter last March.

Babies born in captivity to political prisoners or, like Clara, orphaned by assassinations, were given to families sympathetic to the regime.

Clara is the 120th child to be identified. An estimated 400 other children are still missing. And their grandmothers – many now in their 80s and 90s – are still searching.

-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2015-12-26

Nice to hear she was finally reunited.

Meanwhile other reports say this was a mistake as DNA shows no link between these two ladies. The search continues.

DNA dashes hope of Argentina activist searching for stolen child

By Natalie Huet



It was a Christmas fairy tale, and too good to be true.

On Christmas Eve, Argentina cheered as Maria “Chicha” Mariani, who has been searching for her granddaughter Clara for 39 years, was thought to have finally found her.

But two DNA tests showed that the woman she was reunited with is not her grandchild, officials said on Friday (December 25).

Clara Anahi Mariani is one of Argentina’s “Stolen babies” – children snatched by the military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1976 to 1983. She was abducted at three months old when regime agents killed her mother.

Babies born in captivity to political prisoners or orphaned like Clara were given to families sympathetic to the regime.

Mariani founded the Grandmothers of May Square in 1977 and kept attention on Clara’s case through a series of open letters.

On Christmas Eve a statement from the Anahi Foundation, which Mariani created in 1989 after stepping down as president of the Grandmothers group, said DNA testing had confirmed with 99.9 percent certainty that the woman identified as Clara was her granddaughter.

That DNA test was carried out privately by the woman, who has not been named.

However two DNA tests — one in early 2015 and the other made public Friday — shows no relationship between the two women, said Pablo Parenti, who heads the government office that searches for children kidnapped during the dictatorship.

An estimated 400 of Argentina’s “stolen babies” are still missing today. And their grandmothers — many now in their 80s — are still searching.

-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2015-12-27