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An Ecuadorian court on Monday sentenced a group of eleven soldiers to lengthy prison sentences responsible for the kidnapping and torture of four children last year — a case that has shocked the South American nation and raised questions over President Daniel Noboa’s efforts to militarize some cities amid a surge in drug-related violence.
The court sentenced the soldiers to 34 years in prison for the “enforced disappearance” of children, and said the defendants must pay a $10,000 fine to the victims’ families and publicly apologize.
The soldiers convicted on Monday are expected to face trial for murder next year in the deaths of the children. The remains of the children, aged between 11 and 15, were found in December 2024, a few weeks after they were reported missing.
Ecuador’s military has been patrolling the streets of some cities since January 2024, when Noboa issued a decree saying his country was in an “internal armed conflict.”
The conservative president, who was re-elected to a four-year term in April, has argued that the measure is necessary to reduce violence in Ecuador, whose murder rate has tripled since 2021 as drug gangs fight over control of ports and cocaine smuggling routes.
But human rights groups have accused the military and police of abuses against civilians, including extrajudicial killings and the arrest of thousands without due process.
On December 8, 2024, brothers Ismael and Josue Arroyo were reported missing along with their friends Saul Arboleda and Steven Medina after they did not return home from a soccer game in the port city. Guayaquil,
Security camera footage obtained by local journalists a few days later showed that the children had been detained by a military patrol and forced into the back of a pickup truck.
Later that month investigators found the charred remains of children outside a military base on the outskirts of Guayaquil, and a judge ordered the detention of several soldiers who became suspects in the crime.
The army admitted that the children were in its custody and that a patrol had taken them after a report of a robbery. But it initially blamed drug gangs in Guayaquil for the killings, arguing that the children were murdered after soldiers released them.
In Monday’s ruling, Judge Jose Suarez determined that the children were killed by soldiers who failed to inform their superiors of their detention or report their arrests to police.
The judge said the children were “brutally killed” after being forced to remove a fallen tree in a wooded area near a military base. There, he said, they were beaten with rifles and ordered to take off their clothes before being killed.
About 100 witnesses participated in the trial against the soldiers, with investigators also using the remains of children to prove that they had been beaten in the head before being hanged.
A group of five soldiers who cooperated with investigators were sentenced to a reduced sentence of 2 1/2 years on Monday.
The court also said the Ecuadorian military should hold a ceremony to “recognize the responsibility of the state and the military” in the crime and place a plaque honoring the children at the military base where the convicted soldiers were stationed.
Ecuador’s Defense Ministry said in a statement on Monday that it would abide by Monday’s decision.
,Justice “We reaffirm our respect for the law and the sentence handed down today,” the statement said.
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