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HOUSTON (Reuters) - Five U.S. adoptees took off from Houston on Friday to reunite with their birth families in Chile for the first time after they were stolen as infants decades ago during the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship.
"I will finally get to meet the person that brought me into this world and I get to see where I get my energy from and who I look like," said Ana Maria Haefmeyer, 36, an administrative assistant from Minnesota and one of the adoptees on the flight.
Haefmeyer and the others were able to find their birth parents thanks to efforts from Connecting Roots, an NGO dedicated to reuniting Chilean adoptees with their birth families.
Human rights groups estimate that thousands of children were stolen from their birth parents during Pinochet's brutal dictatorship, which lasted from 1973 until 1990, and adopted to foreign families.
Pinochet encouraged adoptions to reduce poverty while medical professionals, clergy, judges and others are believed to have profited off the adoptions.
Connecting Roots was founded by Tyler Graf, a Texas-based firefighter and adoptee who discovered he had been stolen at birth and reconnected with his birth family in Chile.
The NGO uses DNA tests from MyHeritage to reunite families and say over 100 families have reached out in the hopes of finding their children after a similar trip last year.
The five adoptees will land in Chile on Saturday and spend the next few days reuniting with their families.
Haefmeyer said she had a piece of paper with her mother's name and had looked for her birth mother throughout her life with no luck. It was only after she got married and went to change her name that she found out she was still a citizen of Chile and decided to reach out to Connecting Roots.
Haefmeyer says she's excited and nervous, adding her adoptive parents have been supportive of her trip.
"They know it's going to be closing or filling in the hole that I have within my heart that I've always felt is missing," Haefmeyer said.
(Reporting by Sebastian Rocandio in Houston; Writing by Alexander Villegas; Editing by Sandra Maler)
