It is January 2, 2025 and Luis Arroyo and his family are celebrating at their home in the popular neighborhood of Las Malvinas, in the south of Guayaquilhis daughter’s birthday.
The girl turns 9, but the atmosphere is not festive. He hasn’t eaten for days, he’s sad. He misses his older brothers, Ismael and Josué, whom he last saw on December 8.
His father strives to give him, even if it seems impossible, some normality. Buy a roast chicken and eat together.
Stream He states that at times he would like to be living a nightmare from which he will wake up. “But it’s not a nightmare, it’s real (…) they took my children from me in the worst way,” he says in a telephone conversation with BBC Mundo.
Only hours before he had buried Ishmael (15) and Joshua (14), whose cremated bodies with signs of torture he had to recognize.
Their children are two of the “Guayaquil 4”, the Ecuadorian minors who were victims of an alleged forced disappearance after being detained by members of the army, a case that has shocked Ecuador and calls into question the security policy of the government and the role that the Army is playing.
In addition to Ismael and Josué, the other victims are Nehemías Arboleda, 15, and Steven Medina, 11..
The four went out to play soccer on December 8, but never returned.
“Daddy, come, save me.”
On the night of December 8, Luis Arroyo went out shopping and when he returned home, around 8:40 at night, it seemed strange to him that Ismael and Josué had not returned.
“Since the power goes out here at 9 at night, before that time they were always at home. I asked my wife: ‘What about the babies?’ ‘They went to play ball, they’re coming.’ , he tells me.
So, I thought they must be on their way. But they didn’t arrive and then I started to worry, I went out to look for them and couldn’t find them. I said: ‘What happened? Where are they? “The hours went by and my wife received a call at 10:40 at night.”
The teenagers’ father says that a man who never identified himself contacted his wife to tell them that his children had been detained by the military, that they were naked and needed help, but that he could not protect them because he was afraid of getting in trouble.
“And there he passes me to my son Ismael, the eldest. And he says to me: ‘Daddy, come, save me, we are here in Taura [un barrio de Guayaquil]thrown away, the military caught us for supposedly having been stealing, but we were not doing anything, dad, please come here and rescue us. “I’m scared.”
Luis Arroyo, in black, cries at the funeral of his two children. (Getty Images).
Luis Arroyo tried to calm him down. “‘My son, stay calm, I’m going to rescue you.’ And there this guy took his cell phone and said: ‘Wait, here comes the mafia passing by on a motorcycle.’ And I tell him that for the love of God don’t do anything to the children, may he have mercy. He tells me: ‘You have 45 minutes, an hour to come see them (…) If you love your children, you have to come see them now.'”
The father of the minors assures that the man sent him his location and they were indeed at kilometer 26 of Taura.
“I had no way to get around, I wasn’t going to risk going there alone. So I cut off the call and said: ‘My children are kidnapped, my goodness, protect them.’ There I called a relative to report the news to the police headquarters. Taura and the police with the location that I give him. With this guy’s photo and the number.”
“But when the police arrive at the point they can’t find anyone. And then my relative picks up and calls me and says: ‘Cousin, the babies are not here.’ In desperation I cut off the call and call this guy again and tell him: ‘Baron, God bless you, why didn’t you hand over my children if I sent them to see them?’ And he told me, excuse the bad word: ‘You’re like the dick because you sent me to the police.’ your children (…) the mafia came on about 10 motorcycles and took them away.'”
“The call cut me off and I didn’t hear anything else about my children.”
Family and friends at the funeral of Josué and Ismael Arroyo, Steven Medina and Nehemías Arboleda. (Reuters).
He didn’t receive a call or a message. He found out on social media, on the eve of Christmas Eve, that four bodies had been found cremated and with signs of torture near a military base.
“There we got bad, because until that day we continued praying, trusting in the Lord… We asked: ‘May they not be our children.'”
“They found them on Tuesday and on Friday they called us from criminology to go and give some characteristics of our children. And that same day we did a DNA test.”
At that point, a judge had requested that the case be investigated as an alleged forced disappearance and 16 soldiers were detained.
“Mommies, daddies, they are your children”
But it was on December 31, when the relatives participated in the formalization hearing of the 16 soldiers involved in the detention of the minors, when they had full confirmation.
“When the hearing was over, the prosecutor came to us, to the room where we were meeting. He came with the other human rights prosecutor from Quito and asked: ‘Have you been told?’
And we said no and he said: ‘Well, daddies, mommies, I told you that I was going to be transparent with you, that I was not going to lie to you about anything, and unfortunately the bodies that were found in Taura are their relatives. , they are his children,'” recalls Luis Arroyo.
“That was horrible, my wife almost died there. It was horrible.”
The next stop would be the morgue.
The 4 minors of Guayaquil. (Courtesy of the family).
“They only left their feet”
“I saw my two sons, they only left their feet, under the toes, and since Ismael had his calluses, his bunions, standing like a soccer player, (I could) distinguish him from that, because his head was not there either. The other one “They had left a little hand, a little finger and their hair, part of their skull, and part of their face.”
“My wife didn’t want to see them, she was sick and I left her at home. I preferred that she not see them, but there the 11-year-old boy’s dad, Steven, saw his son too. I also saw the little one, his Little feet, poor thing, it makes me very sad to see everything they have done. His uncle saw the boy Nehemiah, and he recognized him by his eyes. braces and the hair. Because he was more complete than the others.”
Ismael and Josué’s father says that as a family they want to request the exhumation of the bodies, since they still do not have complete information about what happened to them.
“We would like to remove the bodies and take them internationally for DNA testing. We would like you to help us with that, because we want justice. This cannot be ignored, they were four defenseless children, imagine doing all this to them, with this viciousness , with this evil,” he says.
“They give us the bodies but they don’t tell us what they died of, whether they were tortured, shot, their organs removed. They gave us the skeleton, in a state of decomposition, completely burned, without a head, my son, it is something terrifying. The criminal forensics expert “They didn’t tell us the reasons, they just made us fill out a form to be able to remove the bodies to give them a Christian burial.”
“Where do I leave those goals that I enjoyed with him?”
Luis Arroyo arrived at the Ángel María Canales cemetery this Monday with the medals won by his son Ismael in soccer competitions hanging around his neck. It was a tribute to what was his lifelong dream: to become a professional footballer.
“My children were very loving, friendly, they had no problems with anyone.”
“They were excellent children, they loved their mother, their father, their brothers. They were always dedicated to their studies, to the ball. They told us: ‘Dad, mom, I’m going to play professional soccer, I’m going to travel the world, I’m going to buy you a house, mom… I’m going to get them out of here.’ That was my son’s dream.”
“And my other son, Josué, he loved ball, but he liked studying more. And he also said: ‘Mom, I’m going to buy you a house, I’m going to buy it for you first than Ismael, you’re going.’ let’s see'”.
Luis Arroyo (in gray), in the morgue where he recognized his children. (Getty Images).
“I made an effort to see them well, so that they felt good, to pay for their studies, so that they did not need food. Every week I took Ismael to play, because he trained from Monday to Friday and on Saturday and Sunday It was his turn to go play the games. Imagine now, who am I going to take to soccer? Where do I leave those goals that I enjoyed with him? My son Josué… Who am I going to take to school? that they leave in us, in this family.”
“I love them with my life, I will always have Ismael Arroyo and Josué Arroyo in my heart, they are my life. They are in a new place, because I know that God has them up in heaven, they are little angels, I will always love them and I will not rest until justice is done. I promise you that, my loves will not go unpunished. They were everything to me, they were my driving force, my fundamental piece.”
A call for justice
Arroyo maintains that her children were discriminated against because of their skin color and that they are not the first nor will they be the last children to disappear due to the military security strategy of Daniel Noboa’s government.
“This is a bad strategy on the part of the government: sending these people to kill in the streets, because that is what they do, going out to kill… What world are we in, what country are we in? The president supports the shamelessness what these soldiers do, covering things up and discriminating against our children, putting them on the ground,” he criticizes.
“They want to make our children look bad, they want to incriminate them as terrorists, thieves, criminals, when our children never… My children were not criminals, they were not stealing either, there is no evidence that they have been stealing anything,” he says alluding to what the Ministry of Defense initially said about the case, which suggested that the minors had been involved in a robbery before being arrested.
“The president declared them national heroes before December 24 and now he has not shown up, he has not helped us, we have not received any help from the government,” he complains.
Luis Arroyo says he feels afraid and calls on the Ecuadorian authorities to give him and his family protection. “I am terrified by this, I would like to run away from Ecuador. We feel alone, without protection, they can threaten our lives.”
