The Fatima massacre refers to an incident in Fátima, Buenos Aires, Argentina, where 30 prisoners were illegally detained, drugged and shot. Afterwards, their bodies were then dynamited, on August 20, 1976.
Events
Shortly after four o'clock on the morning of August 20, a loud explosion woke inhabitants of Fatima. Workers at a nearby brick foundry arrived on scene and claimed they had found human remains scattered over an area of one hundred yards, presumably a result of the explosion. Almost immediately the area was fenced by soldiers. Photojournalists who had taken photos were kidnapped. The soldiers and civilian staff collected the body parts and loaded them onto a truck of the Municipality of Pilar.
According to the police, the victims were thirty people, ten women and twenty men, including some teenagers. Only five could be identified at the time. The bodies of the unidentified victims were buried in Derqui Pte Cemetery, where they were exhumed years later for identification.
The Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team was able to identify eleven more victims. One of the first was Susana Pedrini of Bronzel, after whom they named a street in the center of Pilar, specifically in the square near the water tank..
Half of the victims could be identified by family and friends through the work of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team.
On July 11, 2008, two former Argentine police officers were sentenced to life in prison for their role in the killings.