List of Concentration and Internment Camps - Argentina

Argentina

During the Dirty War which accompanied the 1976-1983 military dictatorship, there were over 300 places throughout the country that served as secret detention centres, where people were interrogated, tortured, and killed. Prisoners were often forced to hand and sign over property, in acts of individual, rather than official and systematic, corruption. Small children who were taken with their relatives, and babies born to female prisoners later killed, were frequently given for adoption to politically acceptable, often military, families. This is documented by a number of cases dating since the 1990s in which adopted children have identified their real families.

These were relatively small secret detention centres rather than actual camps. The peak years were 1976-78. According to the report of CONADEP (Argentine National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons) Report. 8,960 were killed during the Dirty War. It states that "We have reason to believe that the true figure is much higher" which is due to the fact that by the time they published the report (in late 1984) the research wasn't fully accomplished; Human Rights Organizations today consider 30,000 to be killed (disappeared). There was a total of 340 secret detention centres all over the country's territory.

• ESMA