Forensic anthropologists identify 12 bodies found in dictatorship detention center

The Argentine Team of Forensic Anthropology (EAAF, for its Spanish initials) has identified 12 bodies that were found during an excavation at the site where a  clandestine detention center known as La Perla operated during the dictatorship in the central province of Córdoba. The bodies belonged to victims of the military regime who were presumably held at La Perla and remained disappeared until now. The discovery was reported by Córdoba’s Federal Court n°3 and announced by the EAAF on Tuesday. The NGO said that information about the identity of the victims will be released by the court with the consent of their families after they are notified. 🇦🇷 El Juzgado Federal N°3 de Córdoba informó la identificación por parte del @EAAFoficial de 12 personas desaparecidas halladas en 2025 durante trabajos de búsqueda en la Guarnición Militar de la Calera, donde funcionó el CCD La Perla. pic.twitter.com/yy4VBr9vkZ— Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense (@eaafoficial) March 10, 2026 The EAAF is a world-renowned scientific organization born in 1984 with the goal of identifying the bodies of those disappeared by Argentina’s last dictatorship. They have also taken part in the search, recovery, analysis, and restitution of thousands of victims of other tragedies across the globe. La Perla was one of the largest clandestine detention, torture and extermination centers of the last military dictatorship. It began operating on the same day of the coup, on March 24, 1976, and until late 1978. It is estimated that between 2,200 and 2,500 people were held captive there, most of whom remain disappeared. Located on the outskirts of the capital of Córdoba province, it operated within a military compound. Today it functions as a “memory space” where guided visits are carried out to raise awareness of the horrors of the dictatorship. 50 years Human rights organizations celebrated the identification of the bodies and thanked the EAAF for their work, while also demanding that those who took part in state terrorism between 1976-1984 reveal where the rest of the 30,000 estimated victims’ bodies are. “It has been 50 years since the genocidal coup, and TRUTH is still coming to us,” said an X post by H.I.J.O.S., an organization formed by children of dictatorship victims. “We need them to break the silence pact now and for them to tell us WHERE the bodies of our relatives who remain disappeared are located,” they said, referring to the former military and police officers who carried out the repression. “Every time that the EAAF makes these types of discoveries, I have an irrational hope that one of those bodies may belong to my mom or dad,” wrote in an X post Guillermo Pérez Roisinblit, son of disappeared militants José Pérez Rojo and Patricia Roisinblit and member of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo’s board of directors.