Nora Cortiñas, 94, founder of the Mothers of the “Disappeared” in Argentina, has died

Nora Morales de Cortiñas, a founding member of a group of mothers who searched for their children who disappeared from Argentina's military dictatorship in the 1970s and who became a leading global voice for human rights, died Thursday in Morón, Argentina. She was 94 years old.

Ms. Cortiñas, commonly known as Norita, underwent hernia surgery on May 17 at Morón hospital, west of Buenos Aires, and later suffered complications due to pre-existing conditions, Dr. Jacobo Netel, director of the hospital.

The group founded by the mothers helped focus international attention on the abuses committed by the military dictatorship and continued to pressure the Argentine government for answers after democracy was restored.

Mrs. Cortiñas led a quiet life until her son Carlos Gustavo suddenly disappeared on April 15, 1977. He studied economics at the University of Buenos Aires and was an activist in a left-wing political group, which made him a target of the right. wing dictatorship that took control of Argentina in 1976 in a coup.

“He was 24 years old, he had a wife and a very young child,” Ms. Cortiñas later recalled in an interview published as part of a book in 2000. “He left one cold morning and never came back. He was kidnapped at the train station on his way to work.”

The dictatorship that ruled Argentina until 1983 is widely considered among the bloodiest of the U.S.-backed military governments that took control of several Latin American countries in the 1970s and 1980s.

Human rights groups say around 30,000 people in Argentina have been illegally detained and disappeared without a trace as the government rounded up those it deemed subversives, sent them to torture camps and often killed them.

Ms. Cortiñas went on a desperate search for her missing son, searching public offices for information where she found evasive answers and military officials and government employees who pushed her to stop looking. The fate of her son is not yet known.

“The priority was to go look for my son and I went into a spiral of madness,” she said in an interview with a researcher at the San Martín National University, outside Buenos Aires. “I was called, threatened, told I would be put in prison.”

The month after her son disappeared, Ms. Cortiñas joined a small group of mothers who had begun meeting to ask for information about their missing children.

He continued to participate in what became weekly vigils in the Plaza de Mayo, a square in front of the presidential palace in Buenos Aires, the capital. The women, desperate for answers and not knowing who to turn to, started walking in circles carrying with them photos of the missing.

The dictatorship subsequently the three founding members disappeared of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, but that did not stop Mrs. Cortiñas and others from gathering in growing numbers in an attempt to attract the attention of a society that often seemed indifferent.

“People passing through the Plaza de Mayo hadn't seen us for many years,” Ms. Cortiñas said in an interview at Argentina's National Library. “As if we were invisible. Nobody approached us to ask us what we were doing, because I believe that this is what produces state terrorism, that fear of knowing what we were doing there.”

Even after the end of the military dictatorship in 1983, Cortiñas made it clear that their struggle was not over, continuing to call for action from democratically elected governments and later expressed disappointment in Raúl Alfonsín, the first president elected after the restoration of democracy.

“During the campaign, Alfonsín always promised that the archives would be opened, that we would have news, that something would be clarified,” Cortiñas said in an interview with an alternative media outlet. “The truth is, it hasn't happened yet; the archives have not been opened.”

In 1986, the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo disbanded due to internal divisions, with one camp pushing for a more combative agenda. This has led to clashes with other members, including Ms Cortiñas, over what demands they should make under a democratic government.

Mrs. Cortiñas became the leader of a branch known as the Founding Line of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo.

In the following years, he continued to participate in meetings in the Plaza de Mayo and also became a regular presence in other street demonstrations, emerging as an activist for numerous issues, including the legalization of abortion.

She was rarely seen without a white kerchief on her head, which was meant to symbolize the diapers their children had worn as newborns and made the group recognized throughout the world.

“We stood up to a dictatorship and are still fighting – why should we stop now?” Ms. Cortiñas told the New York Times in 2017 during a demonstration against clemency for those found guilty of dictatorship-era crimes.

Nora Irma Morales was born on March 22, 1930 in Buenos Aires – the third of five daughters – to Mercedes Vincent and Manuel Morales, Catalan immigrants who met in Argentina. Mr Morales ran a printing shop from their home, while Mrs Vincent was a housewife who also worked as a seamstress.

Nora attended school until sixth grade, which at the time was the time when girls often stopped their formal education. At 19 she married Carlos Cortiñas and she continued to teach sewing and take on odd jobs as a seamstress. Mr. Cortiñas worked for the country's Ministry of Economy and died of cancer in June 1994 at the age of 71.

Mrs. Cortiñas leaves behind a sister, her youngest son, Damián Cortiñas, three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Ms. Cortiñas returned to school later in life and studied social psychology, graduating in 1993, at age 63. She continued to teach at the University of Buenos Aires, one of several universities that granted her honorary degrees.

After Ms. Cortiñas' death was confirmed on Thursday evening, dozens of people gathered in the Plaza de Mayo in her honor.

“I want to change this unjust world,” Ms. Cortiñas wrote in the epilogue of a 2019 biography. “Every day, when I wake up, I feel the need to fight. I don't see it as an obligation but as a commitment.”