{{Short description|Former Buenos Aires police station and detention center}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2024}} [[File:Pozo de Banfield - Acto por el 39º aniversario de la Noche de los Lápices (3).jpg|right|thumb|Demonstration in the ''Pozo of Banfield'' on the 39th anniversary of the Night of the Pencils.]] The '''Pozo de Banfield''' is a former Buenos Aires Provincial Police station that was used as an Argentine clandestine detention center from November 1974 to October 1978, during the military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1976 to 1983.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20231123050232/https://www.telam.com.ar/notas/201409/77985-noche-de-los-lapices-pozo-de-banfield-homenaje.html Recordarán en el Pozo de Banfield a los estudiantes desaparecidos durante La Noche de los Lápices]</ref><ref name="justiciaya">[http://www.justiciaya.org/ccd/circuito-camps.htm Circuito Camps; Pozo de Banfield.]</ref><ref name="anred">[http://www.anred.org/article.php3?id_article=1711 ¿Qué fue el Pozo de Banfield?] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061009203125/http://www.anred.org/article.php3?id_article=1711 |date=9 October 2006 }}</ref><ref name="tiempo">{{Cite web|url = http://tiempo.elargentino.com/notas/pozo-de-banfield-se-convertira-espacio-de-memoria-y-justicia|title = El Pozo de Banfield se convertirá en un Espacio de Memoria y Justicia|access-date = 10 March 2011|date = 12 September 2010|newspaper = Tiempo Argentino|language = Spanish|url-status = usurped|archiveurl = https://archive.today/20130409033655/http://tiempo.elargentino.com/notas/pozo-de-banfield-se-convertira-espacio-de-memoria-y-justicia|archivedate = 9 April 2013}}</ref> This detention center was an integral part of what came to be known as the Circuito Camps, and was one of the first to operate as such during the constitutional government of Isabel Perón, nearly 18 months before the 1976 coup d'état.<ref name="justiciaya"/><ref name="tiempo"/> With the nationwide extension of the 1975 annihilation decrees, provincial police forces were placed under the command of the Army, and subsequently the Banfield Investigations Brigade became subordinated to the 3rd Mechanized Infantry Regiment of the Argentine Army.
== Location and architecture == The three-storey building is on the corner of Siciliano and Vernet streets in Villa Centenario in the city of Banfield, Greater Buenos Aires. The commander's office, a torture room, and other facilities were located on the ground floor. On the first floor there were detention cells, offices, the staff dining room, canteen, kitchens, and restrooms, while on the second floor there were more detention cells and another restroom.<ref name="Nunca mas">[https://archive.today/20130415132346/http://www.nodo50.org/exilioargentino/1999_2002/hasta_diciembre2001/nuncamas/89bb.html Informe de la Comisión Nacional sobre la desaparición de personas]</ref>
== Historical significance == A total of 309 Argentines, Uruguayans, Paraguayans and Chileans were detained in the center. Ninety-seven detainees had been kidnapped in forced disappearances; five were set free and subsequently killed.<ref name="justiciaya" /> Among the prisoners were four pregnant women (resp. at least eight, according to other sources<ref name="Zeit">{{Cite web |last1=Rauschenberger|first1=Pia|last2=Schalamon|first2=Stella|date=2024-02-21|title=Ein geraubtes Leben |url=https://www.zeit.de/2024/09/wiedervereinigung-zwei-brueder-argentinien-militaerputsch-verschleppung |language=DE|access-date=2024-02-25 |website=zeit.de |publisher = ZEIT Online }}</ref>) who gave birth while detained. Many of the children remain unidentified,<ref name="anred" /> although identifications were reported sometimes decades later,<ref name="Zeit" /> largely due to the efforts of the human-rights organization Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo which has been instrumental to establish the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team and the National Bank of Genetic Data with the goal to find victims by genetic testing. Only in 2023, for example, Daniel Enrique González found out that he was born in 1977 in Pozo de Banfield as Daniel Santucho, son Cristina Navajas and Juli Santucho, the latter the brother of the revolutionary Mario Roberto Santucho.<ref name="Zeit" /> Housing women during the last months of pregnancy and separating newborns from their mothers is considered to be one of the main functions of Pozo de Banfield.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.rebanadasderealidad.com.ar/lomas-06-16.htm |title=Funcionarios y legisladores recorrieron el "Pozo de Banfield"|publisher=Rebanadas de Realidad|date=13 September 2006|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080518041541/http://www.rebanadasderealidad.com.ar/lomas-06-16.htm |archive-date=18 May 2008 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
Most of the students abducted during the Night of the Pencils in September 1976 were detained for three months in the building.<ref>{{cite news|publisher=Página 12|title=El Pozo de Banfield | date=7 September 2006 | url=https://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpais/subnotas/72634-23601-2006-09-07.html | language=es}}</ref>
The building had been the headquarters of the Banfield Investigations Brigade since the 1960s, and continued in this capacity throughout its use as a clandestine detention center. In 2006, long after the end of the dictatorship, it was handed over to the Secretariat of Human Rights at the request of social organisations, to be used as a memory site ({{lang|es|sitio de memoria}}).<ref>[http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpais/1-64692-2006-03-24.html El ex Pozo de Banfield, El País, 24 March 2006]</ref><ref>[http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=840092 Eduardo Luis Duhalde recorrió las instalaciones del "Pozo de Banfield", La Nación]</ref>
== See also == * Dirty War * Clandestine detention center (Argentina) * Forced disappearance#Argentina * National Reorganization Process * Navy Petty-Officers School
== References == {{Reflist}}
== External links == {{Commons category|Pozo de Banfield}} *{{in lang|es}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20120303024847/http://www.abuelas.org.ar/maternidades/banfield/ubicacion.htm Clandestine Maternities: Pozo de Banfield], Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo website.
Category:Lomas de Zamora Partido Category:Law enforcement agencies of Argentina Category:Dirty War