And in a place called La Montanita, in San Vicente, we found twenty craniums and skeletons. In the open, were the animals-the vultures, the pigs, the dogs-who had torn apart the cadavers and were eating them. But from the craniums we knew that there were twenty cadavers."3 These students were brutally murdered for being well educated. Woman who were pregnant during the time of the kidnaps were kept alive long enough to give birth, and then killed. The babies were then given to military officers, this number was 500 hundred babies.4 The estimated detention centers and concentration camps were 350. During the "Dirty War" the range of disappearances were between 30,000 and 45,000, but this number does not account for the families that were kidnapped.5 Over 1,000 military official were involved in the abduction, physical and psychological torture and murders of the disappeared.6 In response to the disappearances, mothers were able to come together and demand the truth from the Junta leaders. .
These woman were the mothers and grandmothers of the disappeared. These woman started out with just fourteen mothers and grandmothers, who all lost someone to a disappearance. These mothers met through searching for their disappeared children. They started strategically working together while waiting for hours outside the Ministry of Interior. The leader of the Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo was Hebe de Bonafini, Bonafini and 13 other woman banded together, but they needed to be organized. They started meeting in homes and churches, so they wouldn't get caught by the military for having an illegal gathering. As they started to get organized, they made themselves into an association names, Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo. They also developed the best way to protest against the military. On April 30, 1977, they did a silent protest by walking around the Plaza de Mayo, not together, but separately, walking counter-clockwise in total silence.