Report Accuses Ecuador of ‘Forced Disappearances.’ It Couldn’t Come at a Worse Time for Noboa, by Joshua Collins – 24 September 2025

From Pirate Wire Services

National protests kicked off Monday and have spread to the capital as indigenous federation CONAIE calls for a national strike

As protests against the government of right-wing President Daniel Noboa gain steam in Ecuador, Amnesty International released a new report that accuses state forces of severe human rights abuses, including forced disappearances of civilians, as part of his “mano dura” (iron fist) security policies to combat rising crime.

“Continuing a pattern we have seen in El Salvador and Mexico, criminal violence has been replaced by state violence,” said Amnesty representatives in a press conference on Tuesday.

Noboa has made battling crime a central plank of his presidency and declared a “war” on criminal groups that has led to the abuse and even extrajudicial killings of Ecuadorian civilians.

The country has seen a dramatic rise in homicides in recent years alongside the explosive growth of organized crime groups and local gangs. Once the safest country in South America, it is now among the most dangerous in all of LATAM.

In a case that created outrage across the country, soldiers arbitrarily detained and tortured 4 Afro-Ecuadorian teenagers from Las Malvinas. Their charred bodies were found weeks after their disappearance. The soldiers charged in the case have denied killing the boys, claiming the children were released after security forces staged a “mock execution.”

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Joshua Collins has been reporting on Latin America for a decade on human rights, the impact of crime on human rights, immigration and politics.

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