A judge has ordered 16 members of the military to remain behind bars while investigations into the deaths continue.
Ecuador’s Attorney General has confirmed that the charred remains found last week in the town of Taura are the bodies of four minors who disappeared on December 8.
The attorney general’s office announced the findings on Tuesday after the boys’ disappearance sparked nationwide outrage, as well as questions about the involvement of Ecuador’s military.
“The results of forensic genetic tests confirm that the four bodies found in Taura correspond to the three teenagers and a child who went missing after a military operation on December 8,” the office said in a social media post.
The families of the four missing boys – aged 11 to 15 – said they had been out in the coastal city of Guayaquil to play football when they disappeared.
Surveillance footage appeared to show two of the four boys being taken away by soldiers in a pickup truck.
But the Associated Press news agency reported that the investigation into the boys’ disappearance appeared to have stalled. While authorities had the surveillance footage a day after the alleged kidnapping, an investigation into the involvement of the military was not announced for another 15 days.
The investigation into the military’s alleged involvement began only after family members pressed for more information on social media and in the press.
The boys’ disappearance comes amid a crackdown on gang-related crime in Ecuador that has included several declarations of a state of emergency.
Those orders have given sweeping powers to state security forces, but critics have warned that increased militarization could open the door to human rights abuses.
Last week, 16 members of Ecuador’s military were arrested in connection with the boys’ disappearance.
Shortly before their remains were identified Tuesday, Judge Dennis Ugalde Alvarez ordered the 16 military members behind bars while an investigation into their alleged involvement unfolds.
Antonio Arroyo, the uncle of the two missing boys, told the Reuters news agency after Tuesday’s verdict that he had hoped to see the military members involved in the case closed.
“Let them go directly to prison where they belong. We want them detained (in prison), not in a military base,” Arroyo said.
Protests over the disappearances, known collectively as “Caso Malvinas” or “The Malvinas Case,” have erupted in the capital Quito as well as Guayaquil.
“We will not accept it. We are angry and outraged because the government and the authorities have not said anything,” pensioner Fernando Bustamante, 70, told Reuters as he stood with demonstrators outside the court in Guayaquil where the judge handed down the verdict.
In his efforts to tackle a rise in violent crime in Ecuador, President Daniel Noboa has designated some 22 criminal groups as “terrorist” organizations and declared several states of emergency to allow the military to assist the police.
In April, voters also overwhelmingly approved a series of measures aimed at giving law enforcement broader powers to fight crime.
Such states of emergency, however, have a long and troubled history in Latin America, where security forces have sometimes claimed extraordinary powers in the name of fighting crime.
State abuses such as corruption, torture and enforced disappearances have often been linked to such emergency declarations.
