Taty Almeida, iconic human rights activist, tireless campaigner and president of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo L\u00ednea Fundadora, has died at the age of 95.<\/p>\n
An unforgettable, indefatigable figure in the history of Argentina’s human rights movement, Almeida devoted much of her life to seeking justice for the crimes and state terrorism committed during the country’s 1976-1983 military dictatorship and its prelude.<\/p>\n
\u00abWith profound sorrow, we must share the saddest of news: today our beloved Taty Almeida, president of Madres of Plaza de Mayo L\u00ednea Fundadora, has left us,\u00bb the human rights group said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u00abThank you for teaching us that to love is to resist, that the only struggle that is lost is the one that is abandoned, and that there is no force greater than love,\u00bb it added.<\/p>\n
The activist passed away on Sunday at 7.20pm at the Hospital Italiano in Buenos Aires, where she had been receiving treatment for the previous three weeks, her family confirmed in a statement.<\/p>\n
Almeida’s life changed forever after the disappearance of her son Alejandro, aged 20, in 1975 at the hands of the far-right Triple A paramilitary organisation. For decades, she demanded answers from the state as to his fate.<\/p>\n
Despite her years of struggle, she dies without the answers she so desperately longed for.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The activist\u2019s daughter, Fabiana Almeida, told reporters that she and her brother Jorge realised on Sunday morning that their mother \u00abwasn’t doing well.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00abWe told her: ‘Mum, come on, let go. Alejandro is waiting for you up there. Embrace each other and keep watching over us from above’,\u00bb she said, her voice breaking with emotion.<\/p>\n
The mother-of-three\u2019s death prompted tributes from leading figures in Argentina’s human rights movement, politics and cultural life.<\/p>\n
\u00abShe was a fighter,\u00bb a visibly moved Estela Barnes de Carlotto, the leader of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, told the C5N news channel after hearing the news.<\/p>\n
\u00abWe carry on with the struggle. It is a struggle with more pain now, but we must not give up,\u00bb added the veteran rights campaigner.<\/p>\n
\u00abA lifelong fighter who honoured life itself. Farewell, dear Taty,\u00bb former president Cristina Fern\u00e1ndez de Kirchner wrote on X.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tireless campaigner<\/strong><\/p>\n Born in Buenos Aires in 1930 as Lidia Estela Mercedes Miy Uranga, Almeida \u2013 popularly known as \u2018Taty\u2019 \u2013 was a teacher and mother of three children from her marriage to fellow-teacher Jorge Almeida.<\/p>\n After divorcing in 1970, she took on two jobs: one as a doctor’s secretary and another conducting surveys. Taty asked her children \u2013 Jorge, Alejandro and Fabiana \u2013 to organise their studies so they could also contribute to the family income. Through one of her uncles, she eventually secured Alejandro a job at the state news agency T\u00e9lam.<\/p>\n In 1974 Alejandro was working at the Instituto Geogr\u00e1fico Militar, but he was also active in the Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores-Ej\u00e9rcito Revolucionario del Pueblo (PRT-ERP) guerrilla organisation.<\/p>\n He was abducted on June 17, 1975 by the far-right Triple A paramilitary group, operating under the Isabel Per\u00f3n government, before the 1976 coup that brought the dictatorship to power.<\/p>\n Almeida often remembered the last time she saw her son. Before heading out, he told her: \u00abMum, I’ll be right back,\u00bb she recalled.<\/p>\n Alejandro, then in his first year of medical school, has remained missing ever since. Almeida never recovered his remains.<\/p>\n The daughter and sister of military officers, she did not formally join the Madres de Plaza de Mayo until 1979.<\/p>\n \u00abI didn’t dare go. Given my background, I could have been considered a spy. Once I was part of the organisation, I told them the truth,\u00bb she once recalled.<\/p>\n Her husband came from a military family and her sisters married Air Force officers. The initial search for her son took Almeida to the doors of military figures close to her family, including Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri, Albano Harguindeguy, Ram\u00f3n Camps and Orlando Ram\u00f3n Agosti.<\/p>\n When the military junta seized power in March 1976, she initially believed it would restore order and help her find her son. It did not.<\/p>\n In 1979, when the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights arrived in Argentina to investigate allegations of crimes against humanity, Almeida stood in line to testify about Alejandro’s disappearance. She later gave evidence to the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP).<\/p>\n \u00abI feel as though Alejandro gave birth to me. He took me out of the bubble in which I had lived all my life. And I am very proud that he was the one who gave birth to me,\u00bb she said in an interview with the Memoria Abierta oral history archive.<\/p>\n \u00abI was an extreme anti-Peronist. I changed completely. All of that happened after what happened to my son.\u00bb<\/p>\n Almeida transformed her grief into an unrelenting collective struggle as a founding member of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo L\u00ednea Fundadora and a national symbol of memory, truth and justice.<\/p>\n \u00abWe transformed that anger into love and into peaceful struggle,\u00bb she said in a 2017 interview with the AFP news agency.<\/p>\n With her white headscarf always tied around her neck, she became a tireless presence at demonstrations demanding the truth about crimes against humanity. She was also a steadfast supporter of trade union and student movements, lending both her presence and her distinctive voice to their causes.<\/p>\n In the five decades that followed Alejandro’s disappearance, Almeida never stopped searching for what she called \u00ablegal justice\u00bb \u2013 for the Argentine state to tell her where her son was and what had happened to him.<\/p>\n \u00abThey tell you time heals wounds but that’s a lie. I miss him more with every passing day,\u00bb she said in the Memoria Abierta archive.<\/p>\n \u00abI would give anything just to have even a single bone of Alejandro’s.\u00bb<\/p>\n She never received those answers. Until her final day, Almeida lived in the same Palermo flat where she had been preparing dinner when her son left home in 1975.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Following internal divisions within the movement, Almeida became president of the L\u00ednea Fundadora faction of the Madres. She rarely missed a public event and, following the death of fellow-campaigner Nora Corti\u00f1as, had become one of the movement’s most recognisable figures.<\/p>\n In recent years, she helped unite Argentina’s human rights organisations ahead of this year’s March 24 demonstration marking 50 years since the 1976 military coup.<\/p>\n \u00abThere are only three Mothers left now, and two Grandmothers,\u00bb Almeida said in April while receiving an honour from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA).<\/p>\n In her speech, she paid tribute to the women \u00abwho are still with us and those who are no longer here but who will always remain with us.\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00abWe’ve already passed the baton. Little by little. Because despite the walking-sticks and wheelchairs, we crazy women are still standing.\u00bb<\/p>\n She also maintained an openly confrontational stance towards President Javier Milei’s government, criticising its austerity measures and challenges to longstanding state policies on memory, truth and justice.<\/p>\n Milei’s government disputes the 30,000 disappeared estimate promoted by human rights groups, arguing the figure is closer to 9,000 and maintaining that excesses were committed by both sides during the political violence of the 1970s.<\/p>\n \u00abStrength, courage, her laughter and sparkling gaze, her indispensable voice at every gathering \u2013 that was Taty. To anyone who listened to her, in the many different places where she shared her testimony throughout half her life, she would say: ‘Do not forget,'\u00bb the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo said in a tribute.<\/p>\n For generations of Argentines, Almeida became one of the enduring faces of the struggle for memory, truth and justice. Her own search for answers about Alejandro never ended but her decades of activism helped countless other families uncover the fate of their loved ones.<\/p>\n True to the style that has characterised her since she began the search for her son Alejandro (who was abducted by the Triple A in June 1975), Taty used the university honour to champion young people\u2019s political commitment, distancing herself from stigmatising rhetoric.<\/p>\n \u201cAlejandro was 20 when he was arrested and disappeared. He was in his first year of medical school but first and foremost he was a political activist,\u201d she said in a 2025 speech.<\/p>\n \u201cWe must not be afraid of the word \u2018activism.\u2019 To be an activist is to have a commitment \u2013 the commitment that the 30,000 disappeared took on, the commitment that so many young people, and those not so young, have already taken on, and who are our hope.\u201d<\/p>\n She will be remembered for the phrase that became her lifelong creed: \u00abThe only struggle that is lost is the one that is abandoned.\u00bb<\/p>\n Almeida’s wake will be held at the FOETRA telecommunications workers’ union headquarters on Avenida Hip\u00f3lito Yrigoyen in Buenos Aires City. The site will be open on Monday, June 15, from 2pm until midnight, and on Tuesday, June 16, from 8am until noon for members of the public to pay tribute.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u2013 TIMES<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\nMemory, truth and justice<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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