Attorney General’s office confirms that bodies found in Taura are those of the four missing Guayaquil boys

The Attorney General’s office announced early Tuesday that the bodies discovered near the Taura Air Force Base are those of four missing Guayaquil boys. The boys were picked up near Mall del Sol by a military patrol December 8 and were not seen again.

Protesters gathered Tuesday in Guayaquil after the bodies found in Taura were identified as those of four missing Guayaquil boys. Other protests demanding justice and reparations in the case were held in Cuenca and Quito.

“Following DNA testing, the four bodies found in Taura December 24, have been conclusively identified as those of brothers Ismael and Josué Arroyo, 15 and 14 years old; Saúl Arboleda, 15, and Steven Medina, 11,” the statement read. All of the victims were black.

According to prosecutors, the 16 members of the military patrol will remain in custody while an investigation continues. Murder charges could be added to one of “forced disappearance,” they said.

The parents say the boys left home to play soccer on the morning of December 8 and were later picked up by a group of soldiers. The Defense Ministry initially denied involvement but later admitted that a military patrol had apprehended the boys near a Guayaquil shopping mall in connection to an alleged robbery. Police investigators said that there was no evidence of a robbery, and that the apparent victim denied she was robbed.

Admitting that the soldiers violated protocol by not turning the boys over to police, the military command said the four were released several hours later in a rural area near the Taura Air Force Base. A phone call from one of the boys to his father confirmed the released on a highway after they were beaten and stripped naked.

An attorney for three of the patrol members claims the boys’ murders were unrelated to their detention by the soldiers, suggesting it was the work of a criminal gang that two or three of the boys were associated with.

Protests demanding justice and reparations continued in Guayaquil. Quito and Cuenca Tuesday following the identification of the bodies.