42 determine the legal existence of the two minors until three days before the complaint was filed before the Chalatenango Court “for causes attributable to the parents of the girls, because they had never registered their daughters on the pertinent registers.” The contradictions in the statements of María Victoria Cruz Franco, mother of the alleged victims, cannot be justified by her fear of being considered a member of the Salvadoran guerrilla; c) In the domestic jurisdiction, María Victoria Cruz Franco made three statements, Suyapa Serrano one, and Esperanza Franco two, and the facts of the case cannot be determined with any certainty from them. There is no valid evidence that would allow the Inter-American Court to take a decision on the merits of the case, without risking delivering a ruling which does not reflect what may really have happened; d) “Since the case is pending before the Inter-American Court, it is necessary to wait for its decision in the matter, before continuing with the investigations in the case, and presenting all the evidence provided to the international instance, in order to redirect the whole investigation.” It is also necessary to investigate “the Fourth Infantry Brigade further, with regard to possible files that may provide information on what happened, […] and to seek further information on the sisters’ dates of birth”; e) “It is essential to establish the whole historical context in relation to ‘the masses’, the operations of the Armed Forces, the Salvadoran guerrilla camps. […] It should include not only the Atlacatl Battalion [… ,] but also […] the possible participation of other units should be verified.” “The other children of the Serrano Cruz family [have not been] summoned to provide testimony, since this would be unlawful as the international proceeding is pending.” In the domestic sphere, any decision adopted by the InterAmerican Court on the possible inexistence of the minors and with regard to the alleged falsification of one of the baptismal certificates must be taken into account; f) The international court must determine whether the fact that the girls were picked up by soldiers and handed over to the Salvadoran Red Cross “constitutes a crime in itself,” given that “it should be recalled that, if the soldiers picked up the minors, they did not know that their next of kin were nearby”; g) The remedy of habeas corpus, whose effectiveness stems from the urgency of the jurisdictional order to find and free a disappeared person, would normally be appropriate for exhausting domestic remedies. However, in this case it was not, because it was filed 13 years after the disappearance of the alleged victims. Moreover, it is not appropriate to determine the whereabouts of the Serrano Cruz sisters, because it has not been alleged that the children were detained by State authorities, and there is valid evidence concerning the participation of a humanitarian organization. The appropriate remedy to exhaust domestic remedies in this case is the filing of a criminal proceeding; h) “It may be presumed that [the remedy of habeas corpus] was used as a formal requirement for access to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights”; and