The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) said “concerned” by the disappearance of the four boys, aged 11 to 15.
For their part, the United Nations Human Rights Office and UNICEF have asked Ecuador “to exhaust all mechanisms at its disposal to investigate the facts in an exhaustive, rapid and impartial manner.” Here is what we know about this affair.
Forced disappearance
Saul Arboleda, Steven Medina and brothers Josué and Ismael Arroyo went to play football in the south of Guayaquil, located in the west of the country, on December 8. They never came back.
Luis Arroyo, father of the two brothers, told the media that on the evening his sons disappeared, he received a call from a man who passed Ismael to him. Soldiers “chased us, shot in the air, mistreated us”, Ishmael would have said to his father.
The family says they then received two addresses via WhatsApp, including one in the town of Taura, where there is a military base. Finally, during another call, a man assured them that “the mafia had captured” the boys.
Tuesday, after the courts determined that there had been “enforced disappearance”, four bodies were found in a mangrove area near the Taura military base, according to local media.
“Destroyed” bodies
In a video whose authenticity could not be verified and broadcast by the National Assembly, we can see soldiers taking one of the young people into a van and beating him, while another boy is lying face down on the ground in the vehicle.
The bodies that were discovered “are destroyed”which makes their identification difficult, Billy Navarrete, executive director of the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights of Guayaquil, which accompanies the parents of the missing teenagers, told the press.
Families were called to report to the Guayaquil morgue on Christmas Day. If they cannot identify the remains, authorities will conduct DNA testing, which usually takes 30 to 40 days.
What actions are the authorities taking?
On Monday, prosecutors raided the Taura military base, near Guayaquil, where the soldiers involved in the military operation were assigned, confiscating the suspects' phones and the vehicles used to transport the teenagers.
The Defense Ministry placed 16 soldiers in military detention. “Nothing the children did justifies their disappearance,” Defense Minister Gian Carlo Loffredo said Thursday.
He also described this affair as an attempt to make Ecuadorians believe “that the soldiers are madmen who go out in groups of 16 to roam the football fields in order to kidnap and make minors disappear.”
This affair has aroused great emotion in Ecuador, where NGOs denounce serious human rights violations.
President Daniel Noboa has stepped up the use of security forces to fight powerful drug gangs and confront the violence ravaging the once peaceful country of Ecuador. He indicated that the missing minors could be declared “national heroes”.
