The Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF) has identified Carlos Rafael Medina. His skeletal remains were recovered from the Pozo de Vargas in Tucumán by the Collective for Archaeology, Memory, and Identity of Tucumán (CAMIT), and were analyzed and genetically identified by the EAAF. This week, Federal Court No. 2 of Tucumán, headed by Dr. Guillermo Díaz Martínez, notified his family of the identification, and the restitution and ceremony will take place soon. Present at the hearing were Carlos’s two siblings, Silvia and Jorge Medina; Silvia’s husband, son, and two grandchildren.
Pozo de Vargas, near Tafí Viejo, is the largest clandestine burial site of illegal repression discovered in Argentina. To date, 122 people have been identified out of a minimum number of 149 genetically represented individuals who were found. It is an old water well used for railway supply.
Carlos Rafael was 20 years old, a university student, and lived in San Miguel de Tucumán. In the early morning hours of April 15, 1976, an armed group broke into his home in the Barrio Mercantil de Manantial, searched the property, and abducted him. The event was witnessed by his mother, sister, son-in-law, and son, among other family members. Around that time, other schoolmates of Carlos were also abducted and recently identified by the EAAF, also in Pozo de Vargas.
Carlos’s identification was made possible thanks to the genetic comparison between the DNA of the recovered skeletal remains and the genetic samples provided by his two siblings. The sampling took place within the framework of a collaboration agreement with the province’s Human Rights Secretariat.