Argentina marks 'Night of the Pencils'

They were young idealistic high school students who were unaware of what horrors they were about to face: imprisonment, torture and, in some cases, death.

Thirty-five years ago, one of most notorious episodes of abuse committed during military rule in Argentina took place - the abduction of 10 students by security forces in the city of La Plata near Buenos Aires.

On 16 and 17 September 1976, masked men raided their homes under cover of darkness, taking them away to clandestine detention centres in what became known as the "Night of the Pencils".

Six were never seen again.

The murdered victims, aged 16 to 18, were Francisco Lopez, Horacio Ungaro, Maria Clara Ciocchini, Claudio de Acha, Daniel Racero and Maria Claudia Falconer, whose face became one of the best known images to keep the students' memory alive.

The abuse the students suffered became one of the emblematic events of the dictatorship that ruled Argentina between 1976 to 1983.

Their story was told in a 1986 film directed by Hector Olivera, called The Night of the Pencils, regarded as a powerful depiction of events....