How many people died in the Cenepa War?
Cenepa War
Figures given for losses during the Cenepa War vary widely, especially regarding human casualties. Ecuadorian military sources put the casualties at 34 killed recognized by Comando Conjunto de las FFAA del Ecuador[5] and 154 killed and wounded recognized by Asociación de ex combatientes del Cenepa, Quito, Ecuador.[5] As of February 2005, an Ecuadorian Cenepa war veterans' association had a membership of 131 ex-combatants, some of them with long-term health disorders caused by the war. ALDHU, a human rights NGO, has put the total number of mortal casualties for both sides at around 500. This figure was also given by Ecuadorian senior officers after the war,[24] reflecting the fact that Peruvians found themselves attacking well-protected Ecuadorian positions and subjected to continuous ambushes and well-aimed artillery and rocket fire from the heights of the Condor range.
Cenepa War
By the beginning of the 1950s, the situation had come to a deadlock. For the next 46 years, a 78km-long strip of mostly unpopulated, and little explored territory, deep in the Amazonian rainforest and almost inaccessible by land, was left undemarcated, serving as a flashpoint for recurrent diplomatic and military crisis between Ecuador and Peru. While Peru held to the view that the border in the undermarcated area ran along the heights of the Condor range, Ecuador insisted that there was no technical basis for considering that mountain range as the border between the two nations, hinting at the idea that the spirit of the Protocol, which had never mentioned the Cóndor range by name, would require the location of the border markers along the Cenepa river, immediately to the east of the range.