Just one week after the restitution of grandson 131, announced on December 22 of this year, the human rights organization, Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, found the grandson 132. For this happy event, Estela de Carlotto, who currently chairs the organization, called a press conference through social networks in order to report more details about the found grandson.
The press conference was given from 4:00 p.m. at the Casa por la Identidad. From this exhibition it is known that the grandson 132 His name is Juan José and he is the son of Mercedes del Valle Morales, who was arrested and disappeared in 1976 in the province of Tucumán. The grandson found he is still in search of his paternal genetic identity.
john jose he was able to participate momentarily from his province through the Zoom video call application. Because problems with communication occurred due to connection inconvenience, Estela dedicate the following words to the grandson 132: “Let him know (Juan) that we are here for when he needs the hug of all those who from heaven gave him this opportunity to know who he is”.
To culminate the act for the grandson found by the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, the aforementioned grandmothers expressed hope that “2022 thus ends with the resolution of a new case that renews the hopes of this path of truth, memory, justice and identity. We hope that 2023 will welcome us with many more matches”.
Juan’s relatives and their struggle for identity
The mother of the found grandson, Mercedes del Valle Morales, was kidnapped by the military dictatorship on May 20, 1976 in Monteros, Tucumán, when Juan José was only 9 months old. His maternal grandparents named Toribia Romero de Morales and José Ramón Morales were also kidnapped.
As if that was not enough damage perpetrated by state terrorism, four days later, Juan’s uncles, José Silvano Morales, Juan Ceferino Morales and Julio César Morales, were also kidnapped and disappeared.
The search for his identity began in 2004, after Juan’s appropriators died, his foster brothers told him that he was not a biological son of that family and gave him his original National Identity Document (DNI). It was then that grandson 132 went to the Tucumán headquarters of the Network for the Right to Identity of Grandmothers and the National Commission for the Right to Identity to find out where he came from.
After exhaustive documentary research and DNA studies at the National Genetic Data Bank in 2008, it was possible to find out and verify that Juan was the son of Mercedes del Valle Morales. The remains of Juan José’s mother were identified in the Northern Tucumán Cemetery.
