Yves Marie Alain Domergue was kidnapped together with Cristina Cialceta Marull not long after the 20th of September 1976 in the city of Rosario, Santa Fé, Argentina. He was 22 years old and she was 20. Almost 34 years later, on May 2010, his remains were identified by the Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense¹, thanks to a collective search by not only their families, but also the Dirección de Derechos Humanos de la provincia de Santa Fe² and, in particular, the teachers and students from the Pablo Pizzurno School, in Melincué. In 2003 these students, guided by their teacher, engaged in a project to reconstruct the story of the couple that appeared dead in a nearby road, trying to reveal their identity and looking for justice.

  

Between all the participants, part of the story could be reconstructed: it is presumed that on September 24, 1976, Yves and Cristina were shot and thrown on the side of the provincial road Nº 90, five km from the town of Carreras and 126 km from the city of Rosario. Two days later, on Sunday September 26th, they were found by Mr. Agustín Buitron, the owner of an adjoining property, who reported it to the police. The bodies were immediately buried as NN³ in two graves in the Melincué Cementery. From there, they were exhumed in June 2009 to perform DNA tests that, tested against members of both families, determined with absolute certainty that they were Yves Domergue and Cristina Cialceta Marull.

Yves was born on August 8, 1954 in Paris (France) and was the eldest of 9 brothers and sisters. In 1959, close to his fifth birthday, his family emigrated to Argentina. His parents and most of his brothers and sisters returned to France on October 1974, but Yves decided to stay in Argentina and pursue his engineering career at the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA).

In September 1976 he went to the city of Rosario for a short period of time. His only brother living in Buenos Aires followed him. There was no more news about him. Coincidental testimonies, some of them anonymous and others from popular militants who shared his last activities with him, let us  reconstruct the facts: Yves, and his partner Cristina, called "La Mexicana", were intercepted and detained  by an Argentine Army patrol and were illegally taken to the military base "Batallón 21 de Comunicaciones" in the city of Rosario.

Despite the requests of the French Embassy in Argentina, and the numerous petitions made by his family to the governments of Argentina and France, to international organizations, to humanitarian and religious groups, and to the authorities and legislators of the United States of America, together with an intense media campaign, there was never an answer from the Argentine authorities. Yves´s and Cristina´s detentions were never recognized by the military junta that had taken the government by force at the time. His father travelled to Argentina to initiate his research a few weeks after his disappearance and make legal presentations without positive results.

Finding and identifying the remains of Yves and Cristina allows us to reconstruct the brutal way in which they were murdered and take this proof to the justice, in the hope that the people who are responsible for kidnappings and deaths can be identified and convicted.

If you have any information that could help us in the reconstruction of their kidnapping, please contact us on the following e-mail address:

Thank you in advance.

Domergue Family

¹ Forensic Anthopologists Team ● ² Direction of Human Rights of the province of Santa Fe ● ³ In Argentina, an anacronym for "No Name".