A judge has ordered 16 military members to remain behind bars while a probe into the deaths continues.
Ecuador’s attorney general has confirmed that charred remains found last week in the city 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 spurred nationwide outrage, as well as questions about the involvement of Ecuador’s military.
“The results of the forensic genetic tests confirm that the four bodies found in Taura correspond to the three teenagers and a child who disappeared 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 gone outside 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 pick-up truck.
But The Associated Press news agency reported that the investigation into the boys’ disappearance appeared to have been stalled. While authorities had the surveillance footage a day after the suspected abduction, a probe into the military’s involvement was not announced for another 15 days.
The probe into the military’s alleged involvement only began after family members pressed for more information on social media and in the press.
The boys’ disappearance takes place amid a crackdown on gang-related crime in Ecuador that has included several state of emergency declarations.
Those orders have granted wide-ranging powers to state security forces, but critics have warned the increased militarisation could open the door to human rights abuses.
Last week, 16 members of Ecuador’s military were arrested in connection to the boys’ disappearance.
Shortly before their remains were identified on Tuesday, Judge Dennis Ugalde Alvarez ordered the 16 military members to be held behind bars while an investigation into their alleged involvement unfolds.
Antonio Arroyo, an uncle of two of the missing boys, told the Reuters news agncy after Tuesday’s ruling that he had hoped to see the military members involved in the case locked up.
“Let them go directly to jail where they belong. We want them to be detained [in jail], not in a military base,” Arroyo said.
Protests over the disappearances, known collectively as the “Caso Malvinas” or “Malvinas Case”, have erupted in the capital of Quito as well as in Guayaquil.
“We won’t accept it. We are angry and indignant because the government and the authorities have not said anything,” retiree Fernando Bustamante, 70, told Reuters as he stood with demonstrators outside the court in Guayaquil where the judge made the ruling.
In his efforts to address a surge in violent crime in Ecuador, President Daniel Noboa has designated about 22 criminal groups as “terrorist” organisations and declared several states of emergency to allow the military to assist police.
In April, voters also overwhelmingly approved a series of measures meant to give law enforcement more expansive 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 combating crime.
State abuses such as corruption, torture and enforced disappearances have often been linked to such emergency declarations.
