Thousands of Uruguayans participated in the March of Silence to claim for those who disappeared during the last military dictatorship

The march was at a slow pace and in complete silence, without political flags and under the slogan “30 years marching. Against the impunity of yesterday and today. We demand answers. Where are they?” According to an official statement from the Presidency of Uruguay, it began at the intersection of Jackson and Rivera streets, where the Memorial to the Detained and Disappeared in Latin America is located, and moved to Plaza Libertad in the middle of a silence that was only broken twice: when the names of the victims were mentioned and when the Uruguayan National Anthem was sung.

The call comes within the framework of the 50th anniversary of the death of legislators Zelmar Michelini and Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz, murdered in 1976 in Buenos Aires along with leftist militants Rosario del Carmen Barredo and William Whitelaw Blanco.

Until recently, the official number of missing people in Uruguay It was 197 people. However, last week the investigation team of the National Human Rights Institution (INDDHH) included eight new cases on the list that They raised the count to 205. As indicated, three of these people are considered active search cases and another five were already cleared cases, but were not part of the payroll. Meanwhile, there are 81 complaints that are still being studied.

During this Wednesday’s demonstration, in addition to the faces of the victims’ relatives, thousands of young people could also be seen accompanying them through the streets of the Uruguayan capital. In that sense, Alba González Souza, founding member of the association Mothers and Relatives of Detained Disappeared in Uruguay who is still searching for her son Rafael Lezama, assured that the march was no longer about the families “to be about a large part of the Uruguayan people, who shelter and support them.”

Prior to the call, the association had held a press conference in which they maintained that in these thirty years of marches, and fifty years of struggle, “impunity is still present.”

“The files are still scattered and many of them hidden; information is still missing and the search is still blind. A comprehensive search policy for the entire State that involves all its agents is necessary; the commitment must be total and unequivocal,” the association noted.

For his part, the Uruguayan president, Yamandú Orsishared a publication on his Along with it, he added photographs of the crowd.

After 50 years we are still looking for more answers, because they are not just memory. Life continues to open, year after year and in silence, in a gigantic embrace. pic.twitter.com/8HGMCskkTI

— Yamandú Orsi (@OrsiYamandu) May 20, 2026

Meanwhile, the vice president of the Eastern Republic, Carolina Cossewas present at the march and during a press conference defined it as “a national cause for the construction of truth, memory and justice.”

“It is a call to the best values ​​of our people to build our own history” and “not to read it in books written by others,” Cosse further stated and maintained that the search for the disappeared should bring Uruguayans closer, to the extent that it understands that everyone can collaborate with actions such as “talking about this issue, not hiding it and asking questions.”

In addition to the march in Montevideo, also More than 70 mobilizations were called in other cities around the worldincluding rallies in Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile, London, Barcelona, ​​Madrid, Santiago de Compostela, Mallorca, Paris and Stockholm. This Thursday there will also be a tribute in Buenos Aires in an event in which the Uruguayan president and his vice president will participate.