The skeletal remains found in Battalion 14 in the middle of last year they belong to Amelia Sanjurjo, the young pregnant woman who disappeared during the last dictatorship, As stated in a press conference by the prosecutor specializing in Crimes Against Humanity, Ricardo Perciballe.
Perciballe confirmed the finding after echoing the results of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF), which specified that the remains found on June 6, 2023 correspond 99.9% to the young woman who disappeared on November 2, 1977.
“There were certain exhumations, Samples of exams were taken from family members in Uruguay and abroad. We could not obtain direct relatives, mainly relatives of Spain and Italy, That’s why everything was delayed,” Perciballe said before the press.
He then specified that “once these samples were obtained, they were referred to the EAAF in Argentina and today he confirmed to us 99.9% that it is “Amelia Sanjurjo Casal”. Regarding the young woman, he said that she had been “transferred to the detention and torture center The Tablada, where she was subjected to torture that caused her death at the age of 41. “She was presumed to be pregnant and we can confirm her identity.”
“From now on, since this is a judicial investigation, The complaint has a case filed under the old code. We are going to ask for the reopening to see who was responsible for its murder and his forced disappearance”, the prosecutor highlighted.
Who was Amelia Sanjurjo?
Amelia Sanjurjo Casal lived in the neighborhood Columbus of Montevideo, She was 41 years old and pregnant with her first child. While she worked as an employee in a publishing house, she was active in the Communist Party of Uruguay, according to information from Uruguay Memory Sites.
On November 2, 1977, she was kidnapped on the street in an operation by the OCOA. Her partner and a friend were also kidnapped in a mousetrap that they set up in her house and it was they who recognized her voice in the detention and torture center of The Tablada.
Among the testimonies, another kidnapped woman heard how on one occasion they took her to the bathroom and insisted that she stand up, while Amelia responded that she couldn’t anymore. A few days later, they took her back to the floor where the torture room was and she tried to resist, but she was severely beaten, witnesses said.
Furthermore, his sister, Carmen, declared in 1985 before the parliamentary committee who investigated the situation of the missing detainees.
The memory of relatives of the missing
To its turn, Alba González, Member of Mothers and Relatives of Detained and Disappeared Uruguayans, He highlighted that “today Amelia returns to her home, to her family and to her people,” when participating in the press conference.
González, mother of Rafael Lezama, Uruguayan missing in Argentina, He referred to a recurring request from the NGO and expressed: “How much easier everything would have been if those who had the information had handed it over.”
Regarding the personality of Amelia Sanjurjo, he noted that the pregnant young woman was “sweet, flirtatious, warm, distracted but of great temper” and defined her as “a great reader, always willing to tell a story to the little ones who wanted to hear it.” “He dedicated his entire life to his activism and was consistent with it until the end,” he concluded.
Source: Ambito
