( CNN ) -- It took more than 3Â½ decades , but Victoria Montenegro has finally recovered the remains of her father , and in doing so , her identity . The Argentinian mother of three , who lives in Buenos Aires , this week received confirmation that a body found in a Uruguayan cemetery is that of her father , Roque Orlando Montenegro , who disappeared in 1976 when she was just a few days old . It 's a story about the depths of repression reached during Argentina 's so-called Dirty War from 1976 to 1983 . Thousands of people , mainly leftists , trade unionists , students , Marxists and their sympathizers , were targeted by the military regime that took power in March 1976 and even before then . Some were executed ; many others simply were never heard from again . Victoria Montenegro had been seeking the truth about her father since she learned in the year 2000 , when she was 24 years old , that the military couple who raised her were not her biological parents . `` I was appropriated , '' Montenegro says , using the term given to children whose parents were killed or disappeared during the Dirty War and were given to other couples . The organization known as Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo ( May Square Grandmothers ) , helped her find the truth about her identity . The organization helps people , who were taken away from their politically persecuted parents as children , reconnect with their past . Guillermo Wulff , a spokesman with Abuelas , says that for Montenegro , learning the truth was n't easy . `` It took a long time for her to accept it ; but when she did , she was then ready for the next step , which was finding out how her parents died , '' Wulff said . The Argentinian Forensic Anthropology Team ( EAAF by its Spanish acronym ) announced this week that forensic and DNA tests prove that human remains found in a Uruguayan cemetery are those of Roque Orlando Montenegro , known as `` Toti , '' who went missing in February 1976 when he was 20 years old . Luis Fondevrider , president of EAAF , said that identifying the remains of Montenegro was a process that started 10 years ago in Colonia , Uruguay , across the Rio de La Plata from Buenos Aires . `` In 2002 we exhumed eight unidentified bodies from the cemetery in Colonia . At that time , we had no hypothesis as to how the bodies ended up there , '' said Fondevrider . EAAF took DNA and forensic samples from the bodies . In 2007 , the independent organization started taking blood and DNA samples from people in Argentina with missing relatives . Victoria Montenegro was one of 8,500 people who left samples over the following four years . Finally , a match was made this year . But how did the body of a man kidnapped in Buenos Aires end up in a different country ? Fondevrider believes Montenegro was killed during the so-called `` death flights , '' a series of military flights in which political prisoners were thrown alive into the sea . Montenegro 's body probably washed ashore on the Uruguayan coast . A nameless tombstone was placed over his grave in Colonia . For Victoria Montenegro , seeking the truth about her origins has been a slow and painful process , but she says knowing what truly happened has given her some closure . `` Recovering my true identity was paramount , '' Montenegro said . `` Having a true identity is a human right . Recovering the remains of my father has been important not only to understand how he died , but also to bring some justice to Argentina and the victims of the regime . '' Montenegro says her rendezvous with her past is only halfway done . Her adoptive parents , whom she calls `` my appropriators , '' told her both of her biological parents had died in a Buenos Aires shootout in February 1976 . She has no knowledge or clues about what happened to her mother . Her adoptive parents are deceased . She called it `` a miracle '' that the Godmothers organization found her and , `` with a drop of my blood , was able to identify the remains of my father , buried in Uruguay since 1976 . '' Now with a son who , at 20 , is as old as her father was when he disappeared , Montenegro said she hopes the episode shines a little more light on a dark past . `` As painful as it may be , we need to find the truth about our history , '' she said . `` By exhuming and identifying our loved ones after all these years , we give them back their dignity . ''
Victoria Montenegro , 36 , learned of her real father 20 . She learned this week that a body found in a Marxists cemetery was his . Roque Victoria Montenegro was 36 at the time of the just 12 years ago `` Dirty War '' Victoria Montenegro still has no idea what happened to her mother .