Court recognizes forced disappearance of four Afro-descendant boys detained by soldiers and orders apologies, reparations, and legal reforms.

Ecuador’s Constitutional Court ruled Tuesday that four Afro-descendant minors killed in December 2024 were victims of forced disappearance and ordered the state to acknowledge responsibility, issue public apologies, and implement reparations and institutional reforms.

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The decision concerns the deaths of Ismael Arroyo, 15, Josué Arroyo, 14, Saúl Arboleda, 15, and Steven Medina, 11, who were intercepted by military patrols on December 8, 2024, in Guayaquil, near the Las Malvinas neighborhood.

According to the ruling, the boys were irregularly detained by soldiers and later taken to Taura. There they were beaten, tortured, forced to strip, and abandoned. Days later, their burned remains were found in a mangrove area. Autopsies determined that three of the bodies had gunshot wounds.

Text Reads: The Constitutional Court of Ecuador declared that four African-descendant minors murdered in December 2024 were victims of forced disappearance.

The Constitutional Court described the events as one of the most serious violations of Ecuador’s constitutional order and determined that the minors had been victims of forced disappearance.

In December 2024, a judge had initially recognized the forced disappearance and the violation of fundamental rights. That decision was later overturned after the government filed an appeal.

The families subsequently presented an extraordinary protection action before the Constitutional Court. The high court annulled the earlier ruling, concluding that authorities violated the right to due process and failed to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the detention, particularly in a case involving children and adolescents.

Text Reads: The Constitutional Court considered the case of four children of Las Malvinas and developed the reach of the habeas instructive corpus as a guarantee of the right to the truth.

The tribunal also stressed that fundamental rights remain in force even under the “internal armed conflict” regime declared by President Daniel Noboa in 2024.

“Even under the ‘internal armed conflict’ regime declared by the president in 2024, the rights to life and personal integrity cannot be suspended,” the court stated, adding that state forces must act with “strict respect for the Constitution.”

The ruling orders the commander of the Ecuadorian Air Force to issue a public apology within two months and instructs the Ministry of Defense to compensate the victims’ families.

It also directs the Ministry of Education to incorporate a space dedicated to the case in the country’s Memory Museum and establishes December 8 as a day of remembrance for the four minors. The decision further mandates reforms to protocols and legislation related to the conduct of state security forces.

The court concluded that the authorities violated due process guarantees required in cases involving minors and confirmed that the detention and killing of the four boys constituted forced disappearance.

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