Argentine baby stolen at birth 40 years ago reunites with family

Dec. 6 (UPI) -- An Argentine woman stolen at birth from her kidnapped mother has been identified after taking a DNA test, and reunited with her grandmother.

Adriana, now 40, was born in captivity in January 1977 -- a month after her mother was kidnapped while seven months pregnant. Her father was kidnapped a few months later as he searched for her, BBC News reported.

Adriana's biological parents later disappeared and weren't seen again.

Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo introduced Adriana during a news conference Tuesday.

"I began to think I had been abandoned, given away, sold, that they hadn't wanted me," Adriana said.

The group has now identified 126 children of hundreds who were kidnapped from left-wing families during the country's last military dictatorship -- known as the "Dirty War" -- in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

"Love is stronger than hate, always," Adriana said at the news conference.

Adriana said when the couple who raised her died, she was told that she was not their biological child.

"I found out on a Saturday and on Monday I had already gone to the Grandmothers, I wanted to know if I was the daughter of people who had disappeared, more than anything because of my date of birth," she said.

Adriana learned she was the daughter of Violeta Ortolani and Edgardo Garnier, who were active in a left-wing student group decades ago. The couple, 23 and 21 at the time of their detention, were never seen again and are two of about 30,000 people who disappeared during the military's rule.