Mirta Acuña de Baravalle, founding member of Abuelas and Madres de Plaza de Mayo, dies at 99

Human rights activist and campaigner Mirta Acuña de Baravalle, one of the founding members of the Madres and Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, has died at the age of 99.

She died last Friday (November 1). Her passing was confirmed in a statement published on social media on Saturday the iconic human rights organisations, which were founded in response to the disappearances of individuals during Argentina’s brutal 1976–1983 military dictatorship.

“We bid farewell to another comrade in struggle, founder of the Madres and Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, Mirta Baravalle. At the age of 99, Mirta left without the embrace of her grandson or granddaughter. To yours and to all of them, we will continue looking for them. Until always, dear Mirta!’” read a post from the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo.

Acuña de Baravalle's life changed in August 1976, when her 28-year-old daughter, Ana María Baravalle, and son-in-law, Julio César Galizzi, were kidnapped by the security forces. 

Ana María was five months pregnant at the time of her disappearance.

From that moment on, Mirta dedicated her life to the search for her daughter, grandson or granddaughter, and son-in-law.

"We are looking for our grandchildren, without forgetting our children," she often repeated. 

Despite decades of struggle, she never found out what happened to them.

She was one of the first women who, in 1977, began to gather every Thursday in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, in front of the Casa Rosada, the seat of the Presidency, to demand information about the disappeared.

She was also one of the 12 founders of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo NGO, created in 1977 to identify and return children disappeared by the dictatorship to their families of origin.

“She had the greatest values and principles I have ever known. The stories of how she searched for the children who had been appropriated are impressive, her disguises, her strategies to get to them,” left-wing leader and lawyer Myriam Bregman recalled in a post on social media.

“She left without finding Camila or Ernesto, his appropriated granddaughter or grandson. ‘My skeleton is tired,’ she told me recently,” Bregman wrote.

The Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo and Madres de Plaza de Mayo were both founded in 1977 as women searched for their missing loved ones and the babies they bore in captivity. 

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 gifted to people close to the leadership, with the military junta keen to have them raised as regime loyalists. 

– TIMES/AFP/NA