‘Dictatorship obstetrician’ Jorge Antonio Bergés dies at 83

Former Buenos Aires province Police medic Jorge Antonio Bergés, known as the “dictatorship obstetrician,” died at 83, human rights activists announced on Tuesday. He had been serving a life sentence under house arrest in his home in Quilmes and was hospitalized at the time of his death. As a medic, Bergés’ role during the dictatorship was to deliver the babies of women held in clandestine detention centers. He was also involved in the system that later gave those babies to other families.  Human rights groups estimate that at least 300 stolen babies (now adults) have not yet been found and continue to live with a false identitiy.  In 2024, he was convicted to life in prison for crimes including torture, rape, forced abortion, false imprisonment of politically persecuted people and children, homicide, and child theft. In past trials he was also convicted for torturing late journalist Jacobo Timerman and pregnant illegal detainees, some of whom remain disappeared.  One survivor, Adriana Calvo, said that Bergés forced her to give birth to her daughter Teresa in a car while she was being taken to the Pozo de Banfield clandestine detention center. He then made her clean up the floor of the room where she was placed after having her child. Calvo, who passed away in 2010, was the first witness to testify in the 1985 trial that convicted the military Juntas.  Her daughter Teresa Laborde Calvo wrote on Instagram: “The obstetrician of evil died without telling us where the babies he stole are.” “He will hopefully rot in the annals of history like the human scum he was,” Teresa said. Bergés had spent time in prison on and off since the return of democracy in 1983. He was initially convicted for torture but released due to a 1987 law that stated that military and police members with lower ranks were not criminally responsible for the crimes committed during the dictatorship. Bergés was arrested again in 2001 and convicted in 2004 to seven years alongside former police chief Miguel Etchecolatz for child and identity theft of Carmen Gallo Sanz, who was born in the Pozo de Banfield to a woman who remains disappeared.  Bergés signed a fake birth certificate and personally handed the baby to a family who raised her under a false identity. The medic was also charged in an investigation of the false imprisonment and torture of Jorge Julio López in a La Plata police station in 1976. López disappeared in 2006 on the day he was supposed to testify against Etchecolatz in a crimes against humanity trial. He has  never been seen again. Murió el genocida Jorge Antonio Bergés, médico de la Policía. Juró cuidar la vida, pero se dedicó a robarlaCondenado a prisión perpetua. Su familia pudo despedirlo.Acá seguimos sin saber dónde están nuestros familiares desaparecidos y nuestras hermanas y hermanos apropiados. pic.twitter.com/We5PEjSVxw— H.I.J.O.S. Capital (@hijos_capital) February 10, 2026 “He swore to take care of life, but he dedicated himself to stealing it,”human rights organization H.I.J.O.S. tweeted. The group, made up by children of dictatorship victims, questioned that while Bergés’ family “was able to say goodbye,” they still don’t know where their disappeared parents and stolen siblings are. Another dictatorship criminal passed away Earlier on Tuesday, H.I.J.O.S. wrote that Carlos Alberto Lorenzatti, former head of an intelligence department within the Federal Police, also passed away at 81. He was serving a 25-year sentence for torture, homicide and false imprisonment against 352 victims during his time working at clandestine detention centers El Atlético, El Banco, and El Olimpo. The organization questioned that he was serving his sentence in house arrest and died without giving information about the disappeared and their children.