Maradona Jr pleads for DNA donors in search for Argentina's stolen babies [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

The son of the footballing legend is carrying on his father’s quest to trace the children taken from parents murdered by the junta

Lorenzo Tondo
@lorenzo_tondo
Fri 11 Jun 2021 07.00 EDT

Diego Armando Maradona Jr, son of the late Argentine football legend, is urging Italians to submit DNA to help the Argentinian government trace hundreds of children who were stolen and their parents murdered by the military junta that controlled the country four decades ago.

Maradona Jr is doing radio interviews in Italy and using his 400,000-strong social media following to broaden the search, which has already seen DNA testing programmes rolled out in Madrid and Rome.

The Argentine government believes dozens of children of the desaparecidos, the estimated 30,000 people kidnapped and murdered by the army during the dictatorship of the late 1970s and early 1980s, could have been taken to Italy after the fall of the junta.

During the dictatorship, pregnant women being kept prisoner were kept alive until they gave birth and then murdered. At least 500 babies were taken from their parents and given to childless military couples to raise as their own.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/jun/11/maradona-jr-pleads-for-dna-donors-in-search-for-argentinas-stolen-babies