-35displaced had been accommodated. The children ranged from newborn babies to 12 years old. 48(32) On July 12, 1996, the Chalatenango Trial Court issued a letter rogatory to the Ilobasco Trial Court, Cabañas Department, to receive the statement of Esperanza Franco Orellana, who had been named as a witness by María Victoria Cruz Franco (supra para. 48(28)). This letter rogatory was never received by the said Ilobasco Court, and was therefore repeated on September 18, 1996. On February 17, 1997, almost five months after the letter rogatory had been issued, the Chalatenango Trial Court received official communication No. 431 issued by the Ilobasco Trial Court, advising that it had not been possible to summon Esperanza Franco, “since she was not known at the address provided” for notifying the summons. 48(33) In her statement before the Chalatenango Trial Court on July 19, 1996 (supra para. 48(30)), Suyapa Serrano Cruz stated that her family had received news that her sisters, Ernestina and Erlinda, had been handed over to the International Red Cross from Esperanza Franco, and provided the latter’s address. 48(34) On July 30, 1997, the prosecutor assigned by the Special Crimes Unit stated that the “summons of Esperanza Franco […] of July 12, [1996 (supra para. 48(32))] […] d[id] not include the complete address” and, consequently, Mrs. Franco had not been found. He also indicated that the complete address could be found in the statement made by Suyapa Serrano Cruz on July 19, 1996 (supra para. 48(30)), and requested that “Esperanza Franco be formally summoned […] to testify as a witness.” 48(35) On September 23, 1997, María Esperanza Franco Orellana de Miranda testified before the Chalatenango Trial Court, more than 14 months after Mrs. Cruz Franco had provided her name as a witness of the facts (supra para. 48(28)). In her statement, Mrs. Franco Orellana indicated, inter alia, that on June 2, 1982 “she was in the Sierpe district [with] her mother[, who] told her she had seen [when] the children, Ernestina [and Erlinda] Serrano, were taken from an Armed Forces helicopter,” so “they drove to the place where [this] helicopter had landed,” and it was then that “she saw they were putting [the said] children in a Red Cross vehicle”; she did not know whether this was the national or the international Red Cross. 48(36) On September 2, 1996, the prosecutor assigned by the Special Crimes Unit filed a brief, in which he requested the Chalatenango Trial Court to “issue an official communication to the International Committee of the Red Cross requesting it to advise whether Herlinda [(sic)] and Ernestina [Serrano Cruz] were among the children [it attended] in 1982 [… and] to the Hospital Director, Dr. Luis Edmundo Vásquez, requesting him to advise whether his institution had provided medical care to the child, Herlinda [(sic)] in June” 1982, since information had been received that “this child had been injured by a bullet from a firearm.” The court issued these official communications on September 3, 1996. 48(37) On September 23, 1996, the Director of the National Hospital, Dr. Luis Edmundo Vásquez advised the Chalatenango Trial Court, that Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano “did not receive medical care in July 1982, [because] the information cards[,] list of patients[,] and record of interned patients ha[d] been reviewed and the said children were not registered.” The dates forwarded by the Hospital correspond to July 1982, and do not refer to the records for June that year, contrary to the Trial Court’s request. The court did not make another request for the hospital