Fifty years since coup, Chile seeks answers about its disappeared

FILE PHOTO: Signs featuring detained and missing people reading 'Where are they?' are placed at Jose Domingo Canas memorial house, a former detention, torture and forced disappearance quarters of the secret police of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, as Chile approaches the 50th anniversary of the coup d'etat that brought Pinochet to power, in Santiago, Chile, August 16, 2023. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - As Chile readies to mark 50 years since the 1973 coup against then President Salvador Allende, the country is increasingly asking a question about the thousands who disappeared in the years of military dictatorship that followed: "Where are they?".

The South American country is ramping up a hunt, with a National Search Plan launched on Wednesday by progressive President Gabriel Boric to consolidate the reams of case files and investigations, hoping to unearth new leads.