Ecuadorian police probe if bodies found are of missing children

People embrace during a protest in front of the prosecutor’s office following the disappearance in Guayaquil of four children who were last seen running away from a military convoy in Ecuador (Carlos Noriega/AP)

Ecuadorian police on Tuesday found an undisclosed number of bodies in an area close to a military base, and were investigating whether the bodies could be of some of the four children who were last seen taken by men in military uniform earlier this month, officials said.

The case of the children, aged 11 to 15, who went missing on December 8, has profoundly shaken Ecuador, with rights groups and the public demanding information about their whereabouts and asking that the case be investigated as a forced disappearance.