Ecuador court sentences 11 air force troops over disappearance of four boys

Long sentences in case of Afro-Ecuadorian ‘Guayaquil Four’ focuses attention on president’s crackdown on crime

A court in Ecuador has sentenced 11 air force personnel to decades in prison over the forced disappearance” of four Afro-Ecuadorian boys aged between 11 and 15 during security operations in the country’s largest city last year.

The case of the “Guayaquil Four” is widely seen as the starkest example of human rights abuses under the iron-fist security policy pursued by the rightwing president, Daniel Noboa, who placed the armed forces at the centre of the fight against drug trafficking.