2 5. The petition was lodged with the Inter-American Commission on October 27, 2004, and recorded as P-1138-04. On August 4, 2005, it was transmitted to the State, asking that it submit its observations within two months. El Salvador’s response was received on October 11, 2005. 6. The IACHR also received information from the petitioners on December 16, 2005, and on March 15, 2010. Those notes were duly forwarded to the State. 7. For it parts, the State sent additional communications on February 24, 2006, and on June 14, 2010, which were duly forwarded to the petitioners. III. POSITIONS OF THE PARTIES A. The petitioners 8. According to the petitioners’ claims, Patricia Emilie Cuellar Sandoval disappeared from the city of San Salvador on July 28, 1982, while Mauricio Cuellar Cuellar, her father, and Julia Orbelina Pérez, who had been a domestic employee in Mr. Cuellar’s home for one month and 20 days, were abducted from his home (also located in the city of San Salvador) later that same day or in the early hours of the next, July 29, 1982. They claim that the case is surrounded by grave impunity, in that the legal proceedings later brought before the competent authorities are still pending resolution. 9. The petitioners state that the alleged victims’ forced disappearances took place against a backdrop of persecution and systematic violence that, during El Salvador’s internal armed conflict (1980 to 1991), was pursued against any person who held a position contrary to that of the ruling regime. In particular, they maintain that the forced disappearance of persons was a systematic practice, carried out by state agents – or by private citizens acting with their acquiescence – with absolute impunity, with respect to which the agencies of the administration of justice took no action because they were not independent from the other branches of government. They claim that between 1980 and 1991, more than 8,000 forced disappearances took place. 2 10. Specifically, the petitioners claim that Patricia Emilie Cuellar Sandoval had been an active participant in Christian movements of the Catholic Church since 1975, and that since 1978 she had been persecuted by agents of the State. They contend that this persecution worsened in 1980, after the offices of Socorro Jurídico Cristiano (“Christian Legal Assistance”), 3 where Mrs. Cuellar Sandoval worked, were raided and ransacked by members of the Salvadoran security forces and military on July 5, 1980, and after which the National Police issued a report calling all the employees of that office “subversives.” In addition, they report that in April 1981, troops raided and searched the alleged victim’s home and that, failing to find her there, they then went to her father’s house, where they asked after her in a threatening fashion. Finally, they state that on July 27, 1982, one day before her disappearance, the alleged victim was followed by members of the security forces while in her car, a situation that she reported to the offices of Socorro Jurídico Cristiano. They assert that on July 28, 1982, the alleged victim took her children Maité María (aged 3 years), Javier Ernesto (2½ years), and Ana Gabriela (8 months) to the kindergarten they attended in the city of San Salvador, and that she never returned to pick them up. They claim that since then, her whereabouts has remained unknown. 2 The petitioners also claim that during the Salvadoran Civil War, 75,000 extrajudicial killings of noncombatant members of the civilian population took place. 3 Specifically, they report that Mrs. Patricia Cuellar worked as a secretary at the offices of Socorro Jurídico Cristiano between 1979 and 1980. They state that she resigned that position when the persecution of her and her family increased because of her ties to the agency.