Victoria Saavedra

Victoria Saavedra González (Victory Salitrera Office, Tarapacá Region, Chile, February 28, 1943). As a child, she and her family moved to the city of Calama, where she worked as a teacher and assistant at the Chuquicamata copper mine.

On September 11, 1973, his life changed completely because, after the coup d'état and the beginning of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, his younger brother José Saavedra was arrested, tortured and disappeared along with 25 other men in the Atacama Desert. This caused that Victoria began an incessant search of its body by the pampa nortina.

After more than 30 years of fighting, without being able to find the whereabouts of the remains of his murdered brother and those shot dead by Calama, he became a personage of the defense of human rights in his country and in everything the world. She was the manager of a series of complaints that, among other things, allowed the arrest of General Pinochet in London by Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzón, which was based on the investigations carried out by Judge Juan Guzmán Tapia in Chile on the case "Caravan de death". Thanks to their work, support networks were generated in different countries of America and Europe. It was also inspiration for the creation of film documentaries, books and songs. It was awarded local, national and international awards and the recognition, in 2005 with the "Mazorca de Oro" Prize, the highest symbol of the city of Calama; 2006 as Amnesty International's International Human Rights Ambassador, with singer Bono of the U2 group in Santiago, Chile; and 2007 with the "Elena Caffarena" Prize, all to honor their permanent efforts to find the whereabouts of more than 40 executed and detained disappeared in the Chilean desert. Among the films in which it is highlighted are documentaries widely awarded internationally, such as "Dance of Hope" by Deborah Schaffer, "Huellas de Sal" by Grupo Proceso and, recently, "Nostalgia de la Luz" by Patricio Guzmán - film awarded at the Cannes Film Festival as the best documentary, the year 2010.

Victoria Saavedra is also a writer. In his texts he has elaborated a detailed description of the events that he lived during the process of constant persecution of which he was subject and of the search of the bones of his brother and of the calamenos executed by the "Caravan of the Death" in 1973 .

Today she lives with her husband in the coastal city of Iquique.

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