Ecuador's President Daniel Noboa on Monday pledged that his government would not cover up for anyone involved in the disappearance of four children who were last seen running away from a military convoy this month.
The statement came as Noboa's government, which has leaned on the armed forces to try to rein in soaring crime, is under pressure from human rights organizations and fellow Ecuadorians over the case.
Dozens of people demonstrated Monday in Guayaquil, where the children ages 11 to 15 went missing December 8, demanding information about their whereabouts and asking that the case be investigated as a forced disappearance.
Meanwhile, surveillance videos have emerged from Guayaquil, showing men in military uniform grabbing two boys and driving off with them. The two are believed to be among the four children who disappeared that night.
Ecuador's defense minister, Gian Carlo Loffredo, on Monday confirmed the four were detained in the area where the footage was taken.
The Associated Press on Monday reviewed the videos, including those from a security camera at an intersection across from a public hospital near the Las Malvinas neighborhood, where the missing children lived. The videos were handed over by a city contractor to the attorney general's office, the anti-kidnapping unit of the National Police and the National Assembly.
The videos show a group of children running, men in uniform, two children being placed in the back of a pickup truck and the vehicle moving through the streets of Guayaquil. The footage appears to back up the account of the father of two of the children given to local media.
In related developments, the attorney general's office, in response to questions from the AP, confirmed that authorities raided an air force base on the outskirts of Guayaquil early Monday. The raid seized two white vans and the cellphones of 16 soldiers who carried out an unspecified operation the day the children went missing, according to the authorities.
In the videos seen by the AP, two boys — one in a blue shirt and the other in an orange shirt — are taken by the uniformed men, placed face down in the back of a white pickup truck with tinted windows. One of the children is then punched in the head.
The vehicle has a flashing siren, no license plate and a black bench in the back, similar to those used in military patrols. The men in the video are armed and in camouflage uniforms with badges resembling those of the Ecuadorian Air Force.
Luis Arroyo, the father of two of the missing children, earlier told local media his children were on their way home after playing soccer when two vehicles carrying people in military uniforms arrived in the area. The children, he said, were chased, and four were caught and driven away.
It wasn't clear how he knew this.
Part of the footage shows 11 children near an overpass. A while later, some children are seen running and two of them get stopped, one by a person in uniform and the other by a civilian. The two are the ones later being pushed into the back of the pickup truck.
Loffredo, the defense minister, told reporters Monday that according to a military report, the children were detained by a patrol with 16 agents who "observed eight people who were allegedly robbing a woman."
He said the military later released the minors and did not hand them over to the police. The footage reviewed by the AP does not show the alleged robbery.
Noboa told the local Radio Democracy station that it was still premature to classify the children's absence as a forced disappearance.
"We are on the side of justice, and whether it was a civilian, a priest, a policeman, a soldier who was involved, at the end of the day, people need answers," said Noboa, who is seeking reelection in February. "We are not going to cover up for anyone."
Fernando Bastias, a member of Ecuador's Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights, an NGO, said the disappearances constitute "a serious violation of human rights" and called for the prosecution of any military personnel involved.
