Location Pisagua Operated by Chilean government | Built by Chilean government | |
 | ||
Operational 1927-1931
1939-1947
1973-1974 Number of inmates 2500 people (during the 1973-1974 biennium) Killed 30 people (during the 1973-1974 biennium) | ||
The Pisagua Prison Camp (Spanish: Campamento de Prisioneros de Pisagua) was a concentration camp in Pisagua, Chile.
Contents
History
An isolated location in northern Chile, Pisagua was used as a detention site for male homosexuals under the military dictatorship of General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo in 1927-1931.
In the 1940s, Pisagua became the site of wartime internment for citizens of enemy nations when Chile entered World War II on the Allied side. The complex was turned into a concentration camp for Chilean communists and anarchists under President Gabriel González Videla in 1947-1948. Chilean Army Captain Augusto Pinochet was appointed to run the Pisagua Camp in January 1948.
Pinochet's dictatorship to present
When General Pinochet himself seized power in September 1973, the site again became a political detention center.
In the 1990s, the Pisagua court case would draw further scrutiny to the prison camp when a claim of illegal burial was presented by the Chilean Vicariate of Solidarity on 31 May 1990. A mass grave was discovered in June 1990 and was found to contain 20 bodies inside. These would be later linked to prisoners and missing persons (desaparecidos) executed at the camp.