Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Enriqueta Maroni and Dolores “Lolín” Rigoni passed away at 98 and 100, the human rights organizations announced on Tuesday.

Enriqueta Rodríguez de Maroni was a member of Mothers of Plaza de Mayo-Founders’ Line since 1977, after two of her children were forcefully disappeared by the last military dictatorship. She was the organization’s president between 2022 and 2024.

“For those of us who make up the Memory Site (ex ESMA), Enriqueta was the hugs, the smiles, and the right word for every moment. We celebrate her life and will remember her always as an example of the fight for memory, truth, and justice,” said a statement from the entity made up by human rights organizations that manage the memory compound at the ex-ESMA clandestine detention center. 

Rigoni’s death in the early hours of Tuesday was announced by the Neuquén Mothers on Facebook. “Lolín, with her books, her loving displays of affection, her cookies, her warm heart, and her heated speeches,” they wrote in a statement after breaking the news.

Enriqueta Maroni

Enriqueta was born in 1927. She married Juan José Maroni, with whom she had four children. Enriqueta was a teacher, and even after the disappearance of her children, María Beatriz and Juan Patricio, on April 5, 1977, she continued teaching in the working-class neighborhood of Cildañez in Buenos Aires.

At the time of her kidnapping, Beatriz was a 23-year-old who had graduated as a social worker and was working at two health centers. Juan Patricio was 21, studying sociology, and working at Aerolíneas Argentinas. They were both part of Peronist youth groups and Montoneros. Some time after their kidnapping, María Beatriz and Juan Patricio were seen at the Club Atlético clandestine detention center.

Enriqueta appeared in a historic video recorded by Dutch reporters during their coverage of the 1978 Football World Cup in Argentina. The footage showed several Mothers gathered at Plaza de Mayo denouncing the dictatorship’s crimes and demanding that their children return home safely.

“They have come to our homes, they swept them, they stole all they wanted. They ravaged our houses and stole all we had. And on top of that, they stole our children; we never heard from them again. The army did it,” she can be heard saying.

Enriqueta was a founding member of the Memory and Human Rights Space Directors Board, which operates at the former ESMA. Until 2021, at the age of 94, Enriqueta had served as vice president of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Association Founders’ Line. Within the organization, she was the driving force behind the Mothers’ Popular Music Technical Program, which currently operates at one of the Mothers’ headquarters.

Lolín Rigoni

Dolores Noemí López Candan de Rigoni, known by everyone as Lolín, was the last living Mother of Plaza de Mayo from the Neuquén province chapter of the organization. Her lifelong friend and fellow Mother Inés Rigo de Ragni had also passed away in September. For years, the two had been the only two mothers still actively carrying out their search in that region.

Despite being 100, she had continued taking part in the weekly “Thursday rounds” until March, marching around a monument dedicated to mothers in the central park of Neuquén city. The “Thursday rounds” are marches carried out in several squares across Argentina as a way to protest the dictatorship’s crimes, a tradition that began with the Mothers walking around Plaza de Mayo in the late 70s.

“Lolín transformed her deepest pain into a collective cause. She never stopped looking, asking, demanding,” wrote Neuquén provincial lawmaker Darío Martínez on X.

Rigoni had three children with her husband, Helvecio Alberto “Toto” Rigoni. Their son Roberto “Champa” Rigoni, a Peronist Youth and Montoneros member, was kidnapped during a military operation in Isidro Casanova, Buenos Aires province, on April 16, 1977. 

He was seen in one of the clandestine detention centers that operated within the military compound Campo de Mayo. His body appeared on the side of a road in González Catán four days later and was buried as a John Doe. His remains were identified in 1981.

Rigoni co-founded the Neuquén and Alto Valle headquarters of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, the first of its kind, alongside Inés Ragni and a small group of local women who came together to search for their children and fight for justice.