A Christmas fairy tale is ruined after DNA tests dash grandmother’s reunion hope

An activist who thought she was reunited with her missing grandchild after 39 years has been told DNA tests prove there is no link between them after all. Maria “Chicha” Mariani announced on Christmas Eve she was 99.9 per cent sure she had found her granddaugther Clara Anahi Mariani, who was abducted when just three months old by Argentinian regime agents. But a day later, officials said two DNA tests had confirmed that they were not related.

Both reports are conclusive in showing that there is no relationship between the genetic profile of this young woman and the Chicha Mariani family group, nor with the other families that are still looking for abducted children

Government official Pablo Parenti

Maria Isabel “Chicha” Chorobik de Mariani, better known as Chicha, is one of the 12 founders of campaign group Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, which seeks to reunite families with babies stolen during Argentina’s 1976-1983 military dictatorship. Her own granddaughter, Clara, was kidnapped as the infants’ parents disappeared in 1976. The 92-year-old was convinced she had found her again when a woman who suspected she might be the missing child conducted her own DNA tests. But the government agency refuted the findings the next day, saying the second of its tests was by the National Genetic Data Bank, the only institution that provides official results for such cases.

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