Burned bodies found correspond to minors missing after a military operation in Ecuador

The charred bodies that were found near a military base in Ecuador correspond to those four teenagers who disappeared three weeks ago after being detained by soldiers in the port of Guayaquil (southwest), the Prosecutor’s Office reported on Tuesday.

“The results of the forensic genetic tests confirm that the 4 bodies found in #Taura correspond to the 3 teenagers and a child who disappeared after a military operation on December 8,” said the accusing body on the social network X.

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Saúl Arboleda, Steven Medina and the brothers Josué and Ismael Arroyo, aged between 11 and 15, were arrested on December 8 by a patrol made up of 16 soldiers in the Las Malvinas sector, in the south of Guayaquil, one of the main cities hit by drug trafficking violence and where the government keeps the Armed Forces deployed in the streets.

On December 24, after civil justice determined that there was a “forced disappearance” of the teenagers, four charred bodies were found in a mangrove area near the Ecuadorian Air Force (FAE) base in the town of Taura. , on the outskirts of Guayaquil, and to which the patrol belongs.

Justice orders preventive detention against those accused

A criminal court in Ecuador also ordered this Tuesday preventive detention for 16 soldiers who are being investigated for the alleged forced disappearance of the four teenagers, a case that has generated commotion in the country and concern among international organizations, the Prosecutor’s Office reported.

“Based on the elements of conviction presented by #ProsecutorEc, the judge in the case dictates preventive detention for the 16 soldiers prosecuted for alleged #ForcedDisappearance,” said the prosecuting entity through its account on the social network X. The Prosecutor’s Office accused to the group of soldiers, who were already in military custody, of the crime of forced disappearance, punishable by up to 26 years in prison, according to the Ecuadorian penal code.

Also read: Disappearance of four teenagers after a military operation in Ecuador: what is known about the case?

The court of the port of Guayaquil held a hearing in which the Prosecutor’s Office filed charges against the 16 members of the Ecuadorian Air Force (FAE), who are being investigated for the disappearance after having detained the adolescents between 11 and 15 years old on December 8. December for an alleged robbery.

The military maintains that shortly after arresting them, they released the minors in good condition, who have since disappeared.

Dozens of family members, neighbors and human rights activists held a sit-in early outside the court to demand justice for the disappearance of the teenagers who left their homes to play soccer. The protesters shouted in protest carrying signs with legends such as “we want them alive now.”

A woman displayed a cardboard figure of President Daniel Noboa with bloody handprints on his face, which was burned. “Noboa murderer,” said another sign.

The commander of the FAE, Celiano Cevallos, expressed on Monday before the parliamentary commission on Children in Quito that “the military personnel would have acted (…) in the face of an alleged flagrant crime,” in reference to an alleged robbery in progress that he detected the military patrol that provided support to customs agents.

“No (military) operation was ordered in the Las Malvinas sector,” he added.

UN and OAS organizations, as well as international human rights NGOs, have expressed their concern about the case.

Some 40 social organizations held Noboa responsible for the “serious human rights violations” recorded in 2024, within the framework of his fight against organized crime that led him to declare the country in internal armed conflict at the beginning of the year, mobilizing the soldiers to the streets.