19 different name or with false personal data. According to the Search Association, a civil society institution that has documented and investigated this phenomenon in greater depth and has participated in efforts to search for and reunite young people their families,45 as of April 2014, it had received 926 reports of children disappeared during the armed conflict, of which approximately 389 cases had been resolved. Of these, 239 had been reunited with their biological families, 54 had been found dead and 96 were awaiting reunification. 50. Based on the work carried out by the Search Association, the Court has identified the following elements that characterize the systematic pattern of forced disappearance of children during the armed conflict in El Salvador: 46 a) 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. b) 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, because the disappearances formed part of the counterinsurgency strategy developed by the State under the concept of destroying population groups associated with the guerrillas. c) One of the objectives of that strategy was to abduct children in order to separate them from the “enemy population” and “to educate them under the State’s ideology at that time.” There were also other reasons for abduction, such as taking the children to give them up for adoption. d) 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. e) The possible destinations of the children after they had been separated from their families and disappeared can be broken down as follows: 1) adoptions through a formal process within the judicial system, with the majority assigned to foreign families, mainly in the United States, France and Italy; 2) “de facto” adoptions or “appropriations”, consisting of cases in which Salvadoran families took custody of the children but never formalized the adoption; 3) cases of “appropriation” by soldiers, who included the children in their families as if they were their own, although in most cases the children were used for domestic or agricultural tasks; 4) children raised in orphanages without guardians, in which those in charge of them did not try to find their parents; and 5) children who grew up on military bases. In addition, there is evidence to suggest that some disappeared children were victims of illegal trafficking. Finally, there were cases of children who had perished. f) There was also a practice of altering the minor’s identity, with many children registered as sons and daughters; in other words, without the need to alter the records. In other cases the names or surnames were changed together with the child’s age. 51. The Court will now proceed to establish the constituent facts and surrounding circumstances in each of the forced disappearances of the victims in this case, who were children at the time of the events,47 based on the factual framework and the State’s acknowledgment of responsibility. B. Facts related to the forced disappearance of José Adrián Rochac Hernández 52. José Adrián Rochac Hernández was born on May 17, 1975, in the canton of San José Segundo, municipality of San Martín, department of San Salvador. 48 He is the son of Alfonso Hernández Cf. Case of the Serrano Cruz Sisters v. El Salvador. Merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of March 1, 2005. Series C No. 120, para. 48.6, and Case of Contreras et al. v. El Salvador, supra, para. 52. 45 46 Cf. Case of Contreras et al. v. El Salvador, supra, paras. 51 to 55. According to the Court, “child” refers to any person who has not yet turned 18 years of age. Cf. Juridical Condition and Human Rights of the Child. Advisory Opinion OC-17/02 of August 28, 2002. Series A, No. 17, para. 42. 47 Cf. Birth certificate of José Adrián Rochac Hernández issued by the Family Status Registry of the Municipal Office of San Martín (evidence file, volume IV, annex 1 to the submission of the case, folio 1831). 48