Fifty years after the 1973 coup, Chile is still searching for those who were taken and never returned. In August 2023, on the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, President Gabriel Boric announced the National Search Plan outside La Moneda—a state-led effort that brings new forensic tools to establish what happened and to recover those who remain missing.

This search inherits a wounded history. Under the dictatorship, mass graves were hidden or destroyed, and bodies were cast into the sea, while silence and denial shaped official responses. The democratic era brought excavations and identifications, but scientific mistakes at Santiago’s Patio 29 shattered confidence in the state’s forensic service and left families fearful of error.

The project follows families from places like Paine who have carried the work of memory for decades, returning to cemeteries, archives, meeting halls, and to landscapes that still hold evidence. It also traces renewed promises and the fragile trust on which they depend.