Uruguay's Church asks witnesses of dictatorship's crimes to find victims [View all]

Eduardo Campos Lima
By Eduardo Campos Lima
Aug 14, 2024
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An anthropologist working on the excavation of human remains at the Battalion 14 in Uruguay, an area where three victims of torture have already been found over the past years. (Credit: Gov. of Uruguay.)

SÃO PAULO, Brazil – Church leaders in Uruguay has joined the country’s institutions in charge of looking for people who disappeared during the 1973-1995 military dictatorship and hopes to receive information about the whereabouts of the human remains of dozens of victims of the regime.

The initiative had been discussed over the last six months by Observatorio del Sur (Observatory of the South or OBSUR), an association of Catholic priests and lay people that promotes humanitarian values, the Institución Nacional de Derechos Humanos y Defensoría del Pueblo (National Institution of Human Rights and Ombudsman’s Office, or INDDHH), an organ of the Uruguayan Congress that promotes human rights’ policies, and by prosecutor Ricardo Perciballe, who investigates crimes against humanity.

. . .

During the dictatorship, about 5,000 Uruguayans were detained for political crimes. Many of them were taken to clandestine military facilities that functioned like centers of torture. At least 197 of them were killed, but the number might be higher.

“Bodies may have been thrown from helicopters on the sea, others may be lost forever. But some of them were buried and covered by construction materials and still can be found,” Villareal said.

More:
https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-americas/2024/08/uruguays-church-asks-witnesses-of-dictatorships-crimes-to-find-victims