Photojournalist Santiago Arcos recounts how he captured an image that became a symbol of indiscriminate state violence.
The beginning of 2025 was very difficult for Santiago Arcos. The Ecuadoran freelance photojournalist spent the last night of 2024 thinking about the horror of the story he had covered that day.
The assignment from Reuters had been to capture images of the arraignment hearing for a group of military personnel accused in the disappearance of brothers Josué and Ismael Arroyo—aged 15 and 14—and their friends Nehemías Arboleda, 15, and Steven Medina, 11. The four boys had been detained in early December following a soccer match, during a military operation in an neighborhood known as Las Malvinas, in southern Guayaquil.
Arcos' photo became one of the most powerful visual records of a case that shocked Ecuador and reignited allegations of state violence and human rights violations. (Photo: REUTERS/Santiago Arcos)
On Dec. 31, relatives of the boys, neighbors and activists had gathered outside the courthouse to demand their safe return. Just minutes after the judge ordered preventive detention for the suspects, the Ecuadorian Attorney General’s Office announced that human remains found south of Guayaquil—charred and bearing signs of torture—belonged to the missing minors.
The relatives' reaction of desolation deeply shook the photojournalist, who said that, in a 16-year career covering human rights cases and humanitarian disasters, he had never witnessed such pain as he saw at that moment.
“It was a devastating blow. Everyone broke down. Literally everyone ended up on the ground,” Arcos told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR). “It was every horror one could possibly imagine.”
The following day, Jan. 1, 2025, Arcos returned to Las Malvinas for the boys’ funerals to document the grief of that community, marked by violence. One of those images won the 2026 World Press Photo contest in the South America Singles category.
The image—which shows a young man weeping with his forehead resting on a plastic-wrapped coffin supported by two hands, while another person also leans in amidst tears—became one of the most powerful visual records of a case that shocked Ecuador and reignited allegations of state violence and human rights violations.
Arcos, also a native of Guayaquil, said that on the morning of the funerals, he woke up determined to show the world—through his images—what was happening in his city. He wanted to focus the narrative on the tragedy, rather than on the blame-shifting and political attacks that most local media outlets were reproducing, he added.
“I arrived knowing specifically that I was going to try to help bring the truth to light—to shift the discourse a little toward where it mattered,” he said. “Toward what we had right in front of us: a tragedy.”
Arcos joined dozens of colleagues very early on to accompany the families and neighbors of Las Malvinas—first at the victims' homes, and later at the cemetery—during funerals that evolved into a massive gathering marked by tragedy and a clamor for justice.
The crowds inside and outside the boys' homes made it difficult to approach the coffins, Arcos said. At the Arroyo brothers' home, the photojournalist managed to make his way through and climb onto an unfinished wall near the caskets. From there, he could see that the coffins were wrapped in plastic sheeting—a sight that made him wonder what condition the bodies inside must be in.
“When you start thinking about the implications of why [the coffin] is covered with plastic, that sense of horror returns,” Arcos said. “I hadn’t seen that since the pandemic.”
Arcos believes his work helped bring the truth to light in the case of the murdered boys. (Photo: Courtesy Santiago Arcos)
Arcos thought he should take a photograph that captured that up close. He lowered himself to floor level, settled discreetly and carefully into a crouch beneath one corner of the coffin of Ismael—the eldest of the brothers—and waited.
“I think I was there for about five minutes in total, just shooting,” he said. “And well, when I took that photo, I knew that was the photo.”
The image—which was also awarded at the 2025 POY Latam Awards—shows Ismael’s coffin from below, with his soccer team’s jersey draped over it, while his teammates and coach weep inconsolably over him. A pair of hands touches the coffin from underneath.
“The photograph conveys horror through striking details and highlights the scale of violence and its emotional impact,” the World Press Photo jury said, according to the awards announcement.
Following the impact of his photograph, Arcos feels that the mission he set for himself that Jan. 1 morning has been fulfilled. There is no longer any doubt, he said, that the world learned about the tragedy that claimed the lives of those four boys, amidst the inaction and complicity of the Ecuadoran government.
“It felt like a bit of vindication—at least for the truth. I know it’s not the same for the families; for them, this changes nothing,” Arcos said. “The coolest part is that that photo is now in the history books. No one can ever remove it from the World Press Photo winners, and what happened will be known forever. That is now set in stone.”
In February 2026, a Guayaquil court ruled that 16 soldiers were guilty of the forced disappearances of the four boys.
This case unfolded against a backdrop of violence marked by the state of emergency decreed by President Daniel Noboa months earlier, and amidst denunciations of racial profiling and racism during military operations.
Arcos said that, currently in Ecuador, this climate of violence is almost generalized. And that, he added, also impacts the practice of journalism.
Insecurity adds to the precarious working conditions that various journalism advocacy organizations have denounced in recent years.
“I am constantly receiving calls from former colleagues asking me if I’ve heard of any work, because there isn’t as much work as there used to be. Magazines and newspapers are shutting down,” he said.
Arcos said that the majority of assignments that major media outlets request from independent journalists like him concern topics related to violence, which places press professionals at constant risk.
“Very often, in fact, I turn down assignments simply because there aren’t security guarantees to be able to work in peace,” he said.
Arcos currently combines his work as a photojournalist with collaborations with non-governmental organizations.
The families’ devastation upon learning the bodies of the four boys had been found deeply shook the photojournalist, he said. (Photo: REUTERS/Santiago Arcos)
This article was translated with AI assistance and reviewed by Teresa Mioli
