On December 6, 2017, the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of El Salvador ordered the Salvadoran Public Prosecutor’s office and Ministry of Defense to carry out a new investigation of the disappearance of the Rivas Clímaco siblings, five children who were forcibly disappeared during a 1982 military operation.
The Chamber’s ruling cites as evidence a declassified cable regarding the operation obtained by the University of Washington Center for Human Rights, through its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the CIA. The CIA cable names then-Lieutenant Colonel Sigifredo Ochoa Pérez as commander of the August 1982 operation, and notes that prisoners were taken during the campaign, information which is potentially relevant in determining the whereabouts or fate of the disappeared Rivas Clímaco children.
The UWCHR is a long-standing partner of Asociación Pro-Búsqueda, the Salvadoran NGO which represents the Climaco Rívas family in their legal case. Read more about the case on the website of the Unfinished Sentences project.