A Chilean woman whose twin daughters were stolen from her in 1979 has reunited with them after 46 years.
Videos of the emotional reunion between María Verónica Soto, 64, and her daughters Maria Beatrice and Adelia Rose Mereu Chessa have gone viral on social media.
Después de 46 años, María Soto se reencontró con sus hijas robadas en la dictadura de Pinochet. Estaban en Italia, y llegaron hoy a Concepción. pic.twitter.com/xtRx6RY9Rj
— Diego Arratia A. (@arratiadiego_ap) September 10, 2025
The twins, now 46, flew into the Chilean city of Concepción from Italy, where they grew up.
Soto was separated from her daughters in 1979 during the Pinochet dictatorship. She had taken them for a routine doctor’s visit at eight months old when the government clinic took her babies from her, accusing her of not feeding them properly.
They were later adopted by an Italian couple, who were presented with doctored birth certificates that said they had no parents.
The twins said they had always known they had been adopted in Chile but had no recollection of their birth mother.
They were reunited through the efforts of Nos Buscamos ('We Are Looking for Each Other'), a Chilean NGO dedicated to reuniting children illegally adopted around the world with their biological parents. In Chile, they are known as 'the Children of Silence'.
Thousands of children were stolen from their biological mothers and sold into adoption during the Pinochet dictatorship from 1973 to 1990, mainly to couples from the United States and Europe.
Soto says she dreamed of reuniting with her daughters one day. 'Momma always kept looking for you,' she told them during their tearful embrace.
'I fought until I found my girls. That’s why I tell those mothers not to stop fighting. Knock on doors because now there are more possibilities with technology,' Soto said.
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