46 those disappearances.229 Based on new information presented by the Search Association on March 5, 2002, concerning the disappearance of children during the armed conflict, the Ombudsman’s Office issued a decision on February 10, 2003, establishing the State’s non-compliance with the institutional resolution of March 1998 and ratifying “the State’s non-delegable obligation to investigate, prosecute and punish those responsible for massacres, arbitrary, summary or extrajudicial executions of persons, forced disappearances and other serious crimes denounced and confirmed by the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman.”230 Subsequently, on September 2, 2004, the Ombudsman’s Office issued another decision in which it confirmed the State’s non-compliance with the resolutions of 1998 and 2003, and reiterated its recommendations, “especially those concerning the promotion of full access to the truth, justice and reparation for the families of children who were victims of forced disappearance during the armed conflict.” 231 In that resolution, the Ombudsman’s Office confirmed that it had received well-founded information concerning 136 cases of forced disappearance of children during the Salvadoran armed conflict, additional to the seven cases investigated by the Ombudsman’s Office and presented in its 1998 resolution, which it considered “illustrates, with tragic clarity, the characteristics common to this large number of crimes against humanity, and fully demonstrates its systematic and ongoing nature at that time.”232 Among these cases, it included those of “José Adrián Hernández Rochac”, “Emelinda Lorena Hernández Sánchez”, “Manuel Antonio Bonilla Osorio” and “Ricardo Ayala.”233 The Ombudsman´s Office also ordered that its decision be notified to the Attorney General of the Republic, an order made effective on September 7, 2004.234 However, there is no record that criminal investigations were opened in compliance with that order of the Ombudsman’s Office of 2004 (infra para. 144). Furthermore, as was acknowledged by the State, in the case of Santos Ernesto Salinas his mother had filed a complaint with the Office of the Attorney General in August 2002, which had not been admitted (supra para. 66). 142. The Court reiterates that, although a complaint filed with the Ombudsman’s Office can result in effective and useful actions in cases of alleged human rights violations, it is clear that the facts denounced were also brought to the attention of the Office of the Attorney General, who had the responsibility of initiating the corresponding criminal proceedings.235 143. Consequently, the Court finds that, since the State did not initiate, without delay, a criminal investigation into what happened to José Adrián Rochac Hernández, Santos Ernesto Salinas, Emelinda Lorena Hernández, Manuel Antonio Bonilla and Ricardo Abarca Ayala, even though it had knowledge that they had disappeared at different times (supra para. 141), the State failed to fulfill its duty to Cf. Case Contreras et al. v. El Salvador, supra, para. 134, and Report of the Human Rights Ombudswoman on the forced disappearance of the sisters Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano Cruz, their current impunity and the pattern of violence in which their disappearances occurred, of September 2, 2004 (evidence file, volume V, annex 1 to the pleadings, motions and evidence brief, folios 2033 to 2037). 229 Report of the Human Rights Ombudswoman on the forced disappearance of the sisters Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano Cruz, its current impunity and the pattern of violence in which those disappearances occurred, of September 2, 2004 (evidence file, volume V, annex 1 to the pleadings, motions and evidence brief, folio 2043). 230 Report of the Human Rights Ombudswoman on the forced disappearances of the sisters Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano Cruz, its current impunity and the pattern of violence in which those disappearances occurred, of September 2, 2004 (evidence file, volume V, annex 1 to the pleadings, motions and evidence brief, folios 2197 to 2198). 231 Report of the Human Rights Ombudswoman on the forced disappearances the sisters Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano Cruz, its current impunity and the pattern of violence in which those disappearances occurred, of 2 September of 2004 (evidence file, volume V, annex 1 to the pleadings, motions and evidence brief, folio 2106). 232 Cf. Report of the Human Rights Ombudswoman on the forced disappearances of the sisters Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano Cruz, its current impunity and the pattern of violence in which those disappearances occurred, of September 2, 2004 (evidence file, volume V, annex 1 to the pleadings, motions and evidence brief, folios 2125, 2127 and 2132). 233 Cf. Record of notification of the Attorney General of September 7, 2004 (evidence file, volume IV, annex 19 to the submission of the case, folio 1995). 234 235 Cf. Case of Contreras et al. v. El Salvador, supra, para. 135.