20 extensively and taken measures to search for and reunite young people with their families.37 In this regard, the State indicated that “for more than 18 years, the Search Association has solved hundreds of cases of disappeared children and assisted numerous victimized families in an adverse environment, […] without the support of the State.” Given that it is part of the body of evidence in this case and that the State has not objected to it, and taking into consideration the work of the Search Association that has been recognized by the State itself, the Court will proceed to present some results of the investigations conducted by this organization. 53. The phenomenon of the forced disappearance of children was part of a deliberate strategy in the context of the institutionalized State violence that characterized this period of the conflict. Most of the disappearances occurred between 1980 and 1984, with the highest figures corresponding to 1982.38 In its reports, the organization has established that the departments most affected by the conflict were also those where the greatest number of children disappeared; they included Chalatenango, San Salvador, San Vicente, Morazán, Usulután, Cabañas, Cuscatlán and La Libertad,39 because the disappearances formed part of the counterinsurgency strategy developed by the State under the concept of destroying population groups associated with the guerrillas. Under that strategy, it was found useful to abduct children in order to separate them from the “enemy population” and “to educate them under the State’s ideology at that time.”40 The children were abducted during military operations after family members had been executed or forced to flee to save their lives, and they were frequently appropriated by military leaders, who included them within their immediate families as their children.41 The Search Association has identified 15 military operations in which soldiers took children with them, with the number of documented cases varying between three and 39 in each operation.42 Some former soldiers testified that, starting in 1982, they received orders to take any child found during an attack on enemy positions.43 In addition to the separation of children from their families as part of a 37 Expert witness Villalta stated that this organization is “the only body with disaggregated records of the number of cases of children disappeared during the armed conflict.” Expert opinion given by Ana Georgina Ramos de Villalta supra note 35, (evidence file, volume XI, affidavits, folio 7530). 38 Cf. Asociación Pro-Búsqueda, La paz en construcción, supra note 34, (evidence file, volume IV, attachment 5 to the pleadings, motions and evidence brief, folio 2619/23); Asociación Pro-Búsqueda, Report on El Salvador, supra note 34, (evidence file, volume V, attachment 12 to the pleadings, motions and evidence brief, folio 3540); Asociación Pro-Búsqueda, La problemática de la niñez desaparecida en El Salvador, supra note 34, (evidence file, volume V, attachment 13 to the pleadings, motions and evidence brief, folio 3584), and Asociación Pro-Búsqueda, La problemática de niñas and niños desaparecidos…, supra note 34, (evidence file, volume IV, attachment 10 to the pleadings, motions and evidence brief, folio 3207/32). 39 Cf. Asociación Pro-Búsqueda, La problemática de niñas and niños desaparecidos…, supra note 34, (evidence file, volume IV, attachment 10 to the pleadings, motions and evidence brief, folio 3207/31). 40 Asociación Pro-Búsqueda, La problemática de la niñez desaparecida en El Salvador, supra note 34, (evidence file, volume V, attachment 13 to the pleadings, motions and evidence brief, folio 3584), and Asociación Pro-Búsqueda, Report on El Salvador, supra note 34, (evidence file, volume V, attachment 12 to the pleadings, motions and evidence brief, folio 3541). 41 Cf. United Nations, Report of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, Mission to El Salvador, supra note 31, (evidence file, volume IV, attachment 8 to the pleadings, motions and evidence brief, folio 3190), and Asociación Pro-Búsqueda, La problemática de la niñez desaparecida en El Salvador, supra note 34, (evidence file, volume V, attachment 13 to the pleadings, motions and evidence brief, folio 3584). 42 Cf. Asociación Pro-Búsqueda, La paz en construcción, supra note 34, (evidence file, volume IV, attachment 5 to the pleadings, motions and evidence brief, folio 2619/16), and Asociación Pro-Búsqueda, La problemática de niñas and niños desaparecidos…, supra note 34, (evidence file, volume IV, attachment 10 to the pleadings, motions and evidence brief, folio 3207/13). 43 Cf. Asociación Pro-Búsqueda, La paz en construcción, supra note 34, (evidence file, volume IV, attachment 5 to the pleadings, motions and evidence brief, folio 2619/14), and Asociación Pro-Búsqueda, La problemática de niñas and niños desaparecidos…, supra note 34, (evidence file, volume IV, attachment 10 to the pleadings, motions and evidence brief, folio 3207/11).