Rincón Bomba massacre
| Rincón Bomba Massacre | |
|---|---|
National Gendarmerie agents posing with kidnapped Pilagá children and adolescents during the massacre | |
| Location | La Bomba Hamlet, Las Lomitas, Formosa, Argentina |
| Date | October 10–30, 1947 |
| Target | Pilagá people |
Attack type | Shootings, rapes, aerial attack, and enslavement |
| Weapons | Pistols, rifles, machine guns, ground attack aircraft |
| Deaths | 750–1,000 |
| Perpetrators | National Gendarmerie Argentine Air Force |
| Motive | Genocide (judicially classified as such in 2020) |
| Accused | Carlos Smachetti (indicted), Leandro Santos Costas (charged), Emilio Fernández Castellanos, José M. Aliaga Pueyrredón, Néstor Leoncio Perloff, Edmundo Zalazar, Francisco Bagardi, Isabelino Ezcurra, Abelardo Sergio Como (see section Perpetrators, suspects, and participants) |
The Rincón Bomba Massacre, also known as the Pilagá Massacre, La Bomba Massacre, Pilagá Genocide, or Rincón Bomba, was a genocide and crime against humanity committed by the Argentine state against indigenous peoples in 1947. The National Gendarmerie, with support from an Argentine Air Force aircraft and National Territories Police, targeted the Pilagá people in La Bomba Hamlet, near Las Lomitas, in what was then the National Territory of Formosa (now Formosa Province), between October 10 and 30, 1947, during the first presidency of Juan Perón. The atrocities included executions, disappearances, torture, rape, kidnappings, and forced labor, with an estimated 750 to 1,000 deaths.
In 2019, the event was judicially recognized as a crime against humanity, and in 2020, it was classified as a genocide. The massacre was largely unaddressed by the state and mainstream Argentine society for decades, preserved only in the Pilagá people's oral memory. In 2005, the Pilagá People's Federation sued the Argentine state, securing judicial recognition and the state's obligation to commemorate the event and provide moral and material reparations.