AFP – Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa has ordered an intensified search for four adolescent boys who disappeared during a military operation, with public anger over the incident flaring weeks ahead of elections.
In a radio interview on Monday, Noboa also said that a “technical analysis” was needed before the incident could be called an enforced disappearance – despite prosecutors saying it was being investigated as an illegitimate use of force.
Dozens of people protested in the capital Quito and the southwestern city of Guayaquil to call attention to the case.
“They were taken alive, and we want them back alive,” said Luis Arroyo, father of brothers Josue and Ismael, who disappeared in Guayaquil on December 8 along with their friends Saul Arboleda and Steven Medina.
Demonstrators in both cities carried signs reading ‘Where are our children?’ and ‘Black children are not criminals’.
Many Ecuadorans suspect soldiers kidnapped the four boys, who are aged between 11 and 15 and went missing two weeks ago while they were out playing football.
Arroyo told the TV channel Ecuavisa he received a call from a man who put one of his sons on the line.
The boy said that soldiers had abruptly arrived, firing in the air and forcibly taking them, and that they had been beaten.
