Forced disappearance of Peruvian citizen On January 26, 1995, Jorge Vásquez Durand, a Peruvian merchant, left Lima to travel to Ecuador, because his occupation was selling both countries' traditional handicrafts. On January 28, he reached Otavalo and two days later, as he was preparing to returned to Peru, he was detained in Huaquillas on the border with Peru. In her testimony, his wife María Esther Gomero declares: He traveled twice a month, for several months, which is why his passport had several stamps showing him entering and leaving Ecuador. It is to be noted that before one could cross over from Peru to Ecuador and vice versa without a passport, but he had one and did everything formally. Around that time the conflict with Ecuador broke out, so Peruvians in Ecuador quickly came back. It took my husband a bit longer because he was far from the border. In any event, he got out on January 30 and called me from Aguas Verdes (a town on the Peruvian side of the border), to tell me not to worry as he was leaving Ecuador (...). He called again at around 11:30 a.m., sounding very worried because he told me they were not working in customs as they were more concerned about the conflict (...) I insisted that he should just leave everything and he replied that he was going back in to leave his merchandise with someone and then he would come back. NEVER (...) HE NEVER CAME BACK (...) AND I HAVE HEARD NOTHING MORE FROM HIM TO THIS DAY..." According to María Gomero, Mr. Abel Jara, who was also a merchant, told her that he saw Jorge Vásquez, when they called him to Huaquillas to stamp his passport and it was there that he appears to have been arrested. Mario Puente Olivera, who shared a hotel room with Jorge Vásquez, told the latter's wife that they had also been looking for him in the hotel room where they had stayed. Mario Puente had been detained and interrogated under torture, so that he had had to give them Jorge's first name, since he could not remember his family name: Vásquez. On May 15, 1995, Peruvian citizen Ernesto Alcedo Maulen was detained in Manta by members of the Ecuadorian army, According to his testimony, he had been treated like a prisoner of war: "...they took me to Puerto Viejo [he town of Puertoviejo the capital of Manabí province in Ecuador], to Barracks No. 102 where they examined us, well it was what they called a medical examination, but they filled in everything and did not let us say anything. From there they took us to Barracks 101, where the dungeons were (...) They were civilian cells where they put robbers..." They then took them to cells in the Teniente Hugo Ortiz barracks in Manabí, where he was held along with approximately 30 Peruvian citizens. As regards Jorge Vasquez he states that he saw him "...on several occasions, six times. I could not talk to him because we were forbidden to talk, he came out of his cell in a squatting position with his hands behind the nape of his neck. I heard his name when they were making the roll call and later I recognized him when I saw his photo..." Ernesto Alcedo was held until June 20, 1995. […] Through the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, National Defense, and Interior, the Government of Ecuador reported that Jorge Vásquez was registered as having entered enter and left the country several times since 1993, whereby the last immigration record showed him "entering Ecuador on January 27, 1995 and leaving it on January 30, 1995." The report added that they were no records of any detention orders or actual detentions involving him. In response to the Truth Commission's request to the Ministry of Defense for information, the head of the cabinet of ministers, Gustavo Martínez Espíndola, remitted Official Letter No. 15