Sergio Arturo Gómez Arriagada
Estudiante Enseñanza Básica — 12 years old.
Background
Sergio Arturo Gómez Arriagada
Estudiante Enseñanza Básica — 12 years old.
Case summary
Sergio Arturo Gómez Arriagada, a 12-year-old student, was forcibly disappeared in the early hours of September 11, 1973, while waiting for a bakery to open near his home in San Joaquín. Despite an intense search by his family, his whereabouts were never discovered, and he was declared a victim of the political violence prevalent at that time.
Image AI-colorized. This is not an original photograph.
Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos[1]
Sergio Arturo Gómez Arriagada disappeared in the early hours of that day at the corner of Calle Carmen and Pintor Cicarelli, in front of a bakery near his home, which was located at that time in the Parque Isabel Riquelme neighborhood, in the commune of San Joaquín.
According to statements made by his family, the minor was at that location on September 11, 1973, around 6:00 a.m., before the events unfolding at the national level were known, waiting for the bakery to open alongside other people.
His whereabouts have been unknown since that moment. His family immediately began an intense search. They consulted neighbors in the area and the Carabineros station in San Joaquín, without obtaining results.
In the following days, they went to different police units, emergency clinics, hospitals, the Legal Medical Institute, the Estadio Nacional, and other detention centers, without locating him.
His mother filed a report for a presumed misfortune, a case that was temporarily dismissed without the circumstances of his disappearance being determined.
Considering the evidence gathered and the investigation carried out by this Corporation, the Superior Council, paying special attention to the day his disappearance occurred, declared Sergio Arturo Gómez Arriagada a victim of the prevailing political violence.
MemoriaViva[2]
Relatos de los Hechos
Address: Sierra Bella s/n, Pobl. San Riquelme, San Joaquín, Santiago. Marital Status: Single Occupation: Student Political Affiliation: None Date of Detention: September 11, 1973
REPRESSIVE SITUATION
The minor Sergio Arturo Gómez Arriagada, only 11 years old at the time of the events, disappeared on September 11, 1973, around 06:00 hours, while returning home after having bought bread at the "El Carmen" bakery located at Pintor Cicarelli and Carmen street, in the capital.
His mother, Mrs. Barbarita del Carmen Arriagada Molina, states in her testimony that on the day and at the hour indicated, she was with her son Sergio Arturo at the aforementioned business, and she had to return to her home, leaving the minor in line.
An hour later, seeing that her son had not returned, she went back to the bakery to look for him, but he was no longer there. It was assumed that it would have been his turn to buy and that he would have returned home.
However, she never had news of him again. That same day, she went to the San Joaquín Carabineros Station, where they stated they had no information; she went to the Legal Medical Institute where she witnessed a large number of corpses, almost all mutilated, but she did not find her son.
She called various radio stations and wrote to the newspapers, but obtained no results. Finally, Mrs. Barbarita Arriagada adds in her testimony that during the intense search for her son, she was mistreated by Carabineros and her husband, Mr.
Diógenes Gómez Gallardo, had to remain detained for several days at the San Joaquín Station following an argument with Carabineros when he was asking about the disappeared minor.
JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS
On April 24, 1991, a complaint for alleged disappearance was filed before the Second Criminal Court of San Miguel, case file 568698, in which the circumstances of the disappearance of the minor Sergio Arturo Gómez are set forth.
The case was dismissed on June 14, 1992. The anthropomorphic records of Sergio Gómez Arriagada are also included in case file No. 4449 AF, which is being investigated by the 2nd Criminal Court of Santiago, for the crimes of illegal burial of forcibly disappeared persons in patio 29 of the General Cemetery of Santiago.
In September 1991, the presiding judge ordered the exhumation of 125 bodies buried in 108 graves. At the end of 1992, the remains were at the Legal Medical Institute awaiting the results of identification forensics.
Source: Corporation report
Relatos de los Hechos
The book “Breaking the silence of children and adolescents who were victims of political executions during the civil-military dictatorship 1973-1990” incorporates testimonies, photographs, letters, and other documents that families and friends provided or wrote specifically to be published.
The book was produced by the Association of Relatives of Political Executions (AFEP) with the support of the Ministry of Cultures, Arts, and Heritage, through the Culture, Memory, and Human Rights Unit, and the Human Rights Chair of the University of Chile.
The publication, based mainly on the Report of the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation (1991) and the Report of the National Commission for Reparation and Reconciliation (1996), seeks to reconstruct each of the lives and stories of the victims in a comprehensive and careful manner.
During the investigation, access was granted to the archive of the Association of Relatives of Political Executions, where documents that families have preserved over the years are kept. Illustrations by Álvaro Gómez were also included.
The creation process was a complex challenge that involved combining delicacy, respect, and methodological rigor to state a painful and unavoidable truth in this work.
Source: Cultura.gob.cl 20/4/2023
Date: 04-20-2023
References
- 1Museum of Memoryhttps://interactivos.museodelamemoria.cl/victims/?p=3077
- 2