domestic legal measures, as prescribed in articles 1(1) and 2 of the American Convention, respectively. The Commission also decides to publish the present report and include it in its Annual Report to the OAS General Assembly. II. PROCESSING WITH THE COMMISSION 5. The petition was lodged with the Inter-American Commission on December 8, 2003, and filed as number 1072/03 on December 9, 2003. 6. On December 24, 2003, the IACHR asked the Salvadoran State to provide information on the pertinent parts of the petition. 7. The State sent its observations by a communication dated March 5, 2004, which was promptly forwarded to the petitioners on March 19, 2004. The petitioners were given one month in which to submit their observations. 8. The petitioners’ observations on the information provided by the State were filed on April 22, 2004. The Commission forwarded those observations to the State on December 15, 2004. 9. On February 15, 2005, the Salvadoran State submitted additional observations; the IACHR forwarded the State’s brief to the petitioners on April 26, 2005. 10. The petitioners submitted additional observations on November 10, 2006, which were forwarded to the State on March 2, 2007, with the request that it submit the pertinent observations within one month’s time. 11. Finally, on August 28, 2007, the petitioners filed additional information with the Commission, which was sent to the State on September 24, 2007. III. POSITIONS OF THE PARTIES A. The petitioners 12. The petitioners contend that the boys Manuel Antonio Bonilla Osorio and Ricardo Ayala Abarca were the victims of forced disappearance, presumably perpetrated by troops attached to the Salvadoran Armed Forces’ Fifth Infantry Brigade and Atlacatl Rapid Deployment Infantry Battalion. They allege further that the case sub examine fits a systematic pattern of forced disappearance of children during the armed conflict in El Salvador.4 13. As for the facts alleged in the case, the petitioners contend that a military incursion known as the “Operación Teniente Coronel Mario Azenón Palma”5 was conducted in the Department of San Vicente between August 19 and 24, 1982. With the operation imminent, the petitioners recount that dozens of families living in Cerro de San Pedro and other cantons close by were forced to flee to the mountains. This was how on August 19, 1982, Manuel Antonio Bonilla Osorio, his family and other persons living in that community fled, walking day and night in heavy rain. 14. The petitioners go on to report that in a shoot-out in the vicinity of the village of Guayabillas, Manuel Antonio Bonilla’s family had purportedly become separated from the others with whom they were fleeing, and ended up with two more children in their midst: Ricardo Abarca Ayala, 13, and his sister Ester Abarca, 6. 4 To support their claim, the petitioners observe that Pro-Búsqueda has documented a total of 696 cases of children who disappeared during the twelve-year conflict, and has succeeded in locating 255 of them. 5 The petitioners note that according to the Report of the Commission on the Truth for El Salvador, this operation involved some six thousand troops, and was designed to clear the area of guerrillas. United Nations,Report of the Commission on the Truth for El Salvador, p. 125. 2