Guayaquil, Ecuador (EFE).- An Ecuadorian court on Monday sentenced 11 soldiers to 34 years and eight months in prison for the forced disappearance of four Afro-Ecuadorian minors detained irregularly by the military in Dec. 2024 and later found burned and shot dead near the coastal city of Guayaquil.
The court granted the prosecution’s request against 16 of the 17 defendants, also imposing fines totaling 376,000 dollars, and ordering compensation of 10,000 dollars for each victim’s family.
The case is the most serious alleged human rights violation recorded under Ecuador’s “internal armed conflict,” declared by Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa in Jan. 2024, and the first to reach a verdict. Human rights organizations have documented at least 33 similar cases.
Five other soldiers who cooperated with prosecutors received sentences of 30 months in prison, while a lieutenant colonel charged as an accomplice was acquitted.
“This ruling confirms that the State failed in its duty to protect these children,” presiding judge Jovanny Suárez said, adding that the victims were subjected to cruel treatment and lived moments of “horror.”
Detention and disappearance
The case dates back to Dec. 8, 2024, when 16 soldiers detained Ismael and Josué Arroyo, aged 15 and 14, along with their friends Saúl Arboleda, 15, and Steven Medina, 11, outside a shopping center in southern Guayaquil after receiving an alleged report of theft.
Instead of handing the boys over to the police, the soldiers transported them to Taura, a town about 40 kilometers (24.9 miles) from Guayaquil near an air force base, where they forced the minors to undress and abandoned them.
Prosecutor Christian Fárez, from the unit investigating the illegal use of force, said the soldiers exposed the children to a “high-risk situation” and that their deaths could have been prevented if authorities had been notified immediately, a conclusion upheld by the court.
The burned remains of the minors were found days later in nearby mangroves. Autopsies revealed gunshot wounds in at least three of the victims.
Evidence and accountability
Testimony from cooperating soldiers proved decisive.
They admitted that several of their colleagues insulted, beat and abused the minors, sometimes with weapons.
Judge Suárez highlighted a video submitted as evidence in which one soldier is heard telling a child, “Be grateful, Black kid, that I didn’t shoot you.”
The court also found evidence of a “pact of silence,” noting that none of the soldiers reported the detention and instead falsely told their superiors that nothing unusual had occurred during the night.
Outside the courthouse, relatives, neighbors, and supporters of the victims’ families celebrated the ruling, chanting “Justice” after the verdict was read. EFE
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