Ecuador’s disappeared: Inside one family’s search for answers

Fifty-one people have reportedly disappeared during Ecuadorian military operations since early 2024. Can their loved ones find out what happened?

Not long ago, Ecuador was one of the safest countries in Latin America. Now, it is one of the deadliest.

Violent drug cartels have arrived from around the world — from Mexico to the Balkans — to secure cocaine trafficking routes to the coast.

Homicide rates have skyrocketed. President Daniel Noboa has pinned his hopes of lowering the violence on heavy police and military deployments across the country.

In doing so, his government has been plagued with allegations of human rights abuses, including enforced disappearances.

In a new episode of Fault Lines, Al Jazeera investigates the claim that 51 people have been forcibly disappeared during military operations since early 2024.

“For 2024 and 2025, we have 34 preliminary investigations that are currently under way, and 51 victims,” Leonardo Alarcon, the acting attorney general, told Al Jazeera in an exclusive interview.

"The cases are progressing, but the investigations have to be objective and conducted rigorously in order to present the judge with the necessary and compelling evidence to prove the case.”

While it might be true that the cases are progressing, families of the missing argue they are moving at a snail's pace.

Since early December, Fault Lines has spent time with families who are pushing for accountability and pleading with the government to learn what happened to their loved ones.

In some cases, they have spent years without receiving any direct response.

“It gets harder every time my nephew asks when his father will come home and I don’t have any answers,” said Rosario Villon, whose brother, Jonathan Villon, has been missing for almost a year and a half.

The 31-year-old father of three was last seen on December 9, 2024, when he left to pick up groceries in his hometown of Guayaquil.

Addressing a vigil for Jonathan last December, Rosario explained the toll his disappearance has taken on her family.

“Seeing my mother cry for her son, not knowing what to do next to bring him home — it isn’t easy," she said.

Fault Lines has reviewed footage of the day Jonathan was detained. Security cameras show soldiers patrolling Jonathan's neighbourhood, Nueva Prosperina.

A neighbour's mobile phone video also captures the moments after Jonathan was forced into the truck's bed, under a wooden bench. The truck then drives off, and he has not been seen since.

The family recorded the licence plate numbers of the municipal vehicle the soldiers were using