Two missing boys and 50 years without justice: Chile remembers one of the great mysteries of the dictatorship that have never been solved

There was no Christmas in 1973 for the Christie Bossy and Palma Moraga families, and even those who came were not the same: on the afternoon of December 24, the little ones from both homes, Jimmy and Rodrigo, aged 7 and 8 respectively, They disappeared while playing near an area guarded by the Army Chilean in full dictatorship.

“The night of the 24th was not experienced. “We no longer knew what it meant to sleep,” Eugenia Moraga, 87, Rodrigo’s mother and the only living direct relative of the two children, who is currently turning 50 without her child, tells EFE of Augusto Pinochet’s coup.

“When we went to look for him to bathe, I didn’t find him in the garden in front of the house; I ran to the corner and Rodrigo was no longer there. I went to Jimmy’s house and they weren’t there either. Nobody saw the children”Eugenia remembers from her home, where she keeps photos and memories.

“That night the news spread among the neighbors and panic spread,” he recalls. The last time they were seen alive they were playing on a street, near their homes in the city of Coquimbo (north), near the ponds of an oil company which remained guarded by the military because they were critical infrastructure.

Their bodies were found nearly four years later with signs of violence by a girl playing in the same area that had been traced during the first search and investigation period.

Torture complaint

Added to the tragedy of the loss of a child are the interrogations and torture that the relatives reported having suffered at the hands of the Army, responsible for investigating the facts: “They wanted to be able to say that we killed them”, says Eugenia. There is an open case in court against the military over these allegations.

The families, however, have always believed that the soldiers guarding the area were behind the disappearance of the two little ones, regardless of Other versions circulated like the kidnapping or the fall into the chasm where they were found.

Eugenia confesses that she has never lost hope of finding Rodrigo: “She always looked around every house, in case she saw his clothes hanging, she looked and looked again, always with her eyes open.”

When they found the bodies, “I collapsed,” he recalls.

Five decades in court

The disappearance and death of Jimmy and Rodrigo have been a concern of justice for 50 years. The time that has passed since that Christmas Eve has made it difficult to clarify the causes of death and those responsible. With three exhumations in tow, Justice mixes different hypothesesbut so far nothing conclusive.

After the first unsuccessful complaints during the dictatorship, at the end of the 1970s, the case was closed and reopened in 2000 at Eugenia’s insistence. “I’ve been fighting for both for a long time,” she says. New shelving kept it aside again until 2019.

“We are confident that justice and truth will be established,” Eugenia Moraga’s lawyer, Hernán Fernández, tells EFE. According to him, there is progress in the investigation of the “biological traces on the bodies of both children” and the “torture crimes committed by state agents”.

“The Guayacan Angels”

The case of Jimmy and Rodrigo comes alive more than ever every Christmas. This year, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the disappearance, the short film “Los Ángeles de Guayacán” was released, by documentary makers Aukaleb Ankaro and Cristian Lagos, which tells the story and its impact on the family and the neighborhood.

“We wanted to show that mother who at 87 years old has not given up at any point and has not lost hope of obtaining justice, despite knowing that, due to all the missing information and the complexity of the case, perhaps there will never be anything . justice,” Lagos tells EFE.

This is demonstrated by the data recently released by the Guarantor for Children During Pinochet’s dictatorship, 150 children and adolescents were executed (1973-1990), and 40 others were victims of forced disappearances. More than 950 suffered political imprisonment and torture, and one hundred minors were imprisoned with an adult.

“I asked God to let me finish this trial and win,” says Eugenia in response to expectations about the progress of the investigation. After which she closes: “I’m not afraid to leave because I will meet my son and my old (husband), which is what I dream about.”

Source: EFE