BUENOS AIRES, Sept. 1 (UPI) -- A woman in Argentina has been identified through DNA testing as a child abducted from left-wing political prisoners during the country's military dictatorship.
The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo group was founded in 1977 with the aim of finding stolen children who were illegally adopted during the military government of Argentina between 1976 and 1983.
There are still more than 400 people who were abducted as children yet to be identified, but 117 have been located so far.
The woman found recently, identified as Grandchild No. 117, now knows her true origins. She was born in 1978 and was the daughter of Walter Hernán Domínguez and Gladys Cristina Castro, communist activists and members of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party who were arrested in 1977.
In 1976, a coup d'état in Argentina established a military junta called the National Reorganization Progress, headed by Gen. Jorge Rafael Videla, that ruled until 1983.
María Assof de Domínguez and Angelina Catterino, the two grandmothers of No. 117, have long-searched for answers to the fate of their children and of their grandchild.
"We have waited for this day for years," Catterino said at a news conference on Monday.
Assof said she remembered how she and Catterino often took to the streets to look for the granddaughter whom they had never met.
"We were just housewives," Assof said through tears. "I was forced to come to Buenos Aires for the first time in my life to look for my son."
Their granddaughter was raised by civilians who had close ties to officials of the military dictatorship. Identification for her began in 1994, when a report surfaced that a baby mysteriously appeared in the home of a couple in the city of Mendoza at the height of military rule.
"We don't know what her name is yet," Assof added. "But we want to tell her that she has several cousins and uncles. We want her to feel happy. That's our only wish."
Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo released a video of the announcement by group leader Estela Barnes de Carlotto, at which Catterino and Assof were present.
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