Pozo de Banfield

Demonstration in the Pozo of Banfield on the 39th anniversary of the Night of the Pencils.

The Pozo de Banfield is a former dependency of the Investigations Brigade of Banfield and a former Argentine clandestine detention center that operated between November 1974 and October 1978, in the frame of the military dictatorship that ruled the country.[1][2][3][4] This detention center, subordinated to the Army's 3rd Mechanized Infantry Regiment, was notorious for being one of the first of such to operate in the country, during the constitutional government of Isabel Perón and nearly 18 months before the 1976 coup d'état.[2][4]

The three-storey building is located in the intersection of the Siciliano and Vernet streets in the city of Banfield in Greater Buenos Aires. The ground floor housed the commander's office, a torture chamber and other facilities. On the first floor there were cells, offices, dining and casino staff, kitchens and bathrooms, while the second floor contained more cells and another bathroom.[5]

A total of 309 people, including Uruguayans, Paraguayans and Chileans were detained in this center. Ninety-seven were victims of forced disappearance and five were set free and subsequently killed.[2] Among the prisoners there were four women who gave birth, but whose children remain unidentified.[3] It is considered that one of the main functions of this center was to illegally house women during the last months of pregnancy and separate newborns from their mothers.[6] Most of the students abducted during the Night of the Pencils in September 1976 were held for three months in this building.[7]

After democracy was restored in December 1983, the centre was turned into a department of the Buenos Aires Provincial Police. In 2006, at the request of social organisations, the space was handed over to the Secretariat of Human Rights in order to build a Museum of the Memory.[8][9]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Recordarán en el Pozo de Banfield a los estudiantes desaparecidos durante La Noche de los Lápices
  2. 1 2 3 Circuito Camps; Pozo de Banfield.
  3. 1 2 ¿Qué fue el Pozo de Banfield?
  4. 1 2 "El Pozo de Banfield se convertirá en un Espacio de Memoria y Justicia". Tiempo Argentino (in Spanish). 12 September 2010. Retrieved 10 March 2011.
  5. ↑ Informe de la Comisión Nacional sobre la desaparición de personas
  6. ↑ Funcionarios y legisladores recorrieron el "Pozo de Banfield"
  7. ↑ El Pozo de Banfield
  8. ↑ El ex Pozo de Banfield
  9. ↑ Eduardo Luis Duhalde recorrió las instalaciones del "Pozo de Banfield"
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