Ciro Castillo: the tireless search of 202 days in the Colca Canyon

Ciiiroo! Ciiirooo!… was the name that was heard with echo in all the extension in the Colca Canyon. It was the cry of the police, national and foreign rescuers, and also of foreigners who were looking for Ciro Castillo Rojo (26), a Forestry Engineering student at the La Molina Agrarian University, who had been reported missing since April 4, 2011. The days passed and all of Peru wondered where is Ciro? A tireless search began that ended 202 days later: on October 20, the university student was found dead in a ravine of the snow-capped Bomboya, at a depth of 1,000 meters.

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Thus, one of the most mediatic cases that touched the hearts of all Peruvians was put to an end. A common feeling of solidarity with the family of Ciro Castillo, mothers, fathers and children lived pending the case. Step by Step. Data by data. The Peruvian press reported daily on the search for him. The case marked history and on that date, his family was finally able to give him a Christian burial.

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college scouts

This story, which even led to a miniseries on television, began after the university student Rosario Ponce, from the Colca Canyon, through her cell phone, sent a last desperate message of help to a friend in Lima: “Help us, we are lost, ask to be rescued”.

This cry for help reached the newsrooms of the media and thus the country reported the disappearance of two university students. They were Cyrus Red Castle (26) Y Rosario Ponce Lopez (24)in love at the time, who were in their tenth cycle of Forestry Engineering at the aforementioned university.

This is how it was known, that the couple, to have more contact with nature as future forest engineers, traveled the last week of February to Cusco, then to Puno and as the last leg they arrived on March 31, 2011 to the White City. The plan of the lovers was to return to the Imperial City to take the flight to Lima, but that did not happen.

Ciro even communicated with his mother on Sunday, April 3, 2011: “Mom will arrive next Sunday (April 10) in the morning for the elections”, was the last contact the university had with his family. In that call, the student also asked him to send money to his bank account.

The young people, with an adventurous spirit, entered the immense Colca Canyon, in Arequipa. They lived unforgettable experiences, but they got lost in their attempt to leave this place. Rosario Ponce was exhausted and she couldn’t go on. On April 4, Ciro Castillo, very brave, decided to go in search of help to a town that could be seen from the top of the Colca Canyon. He left Rosario at a point where he could take shelter and set off down the mountain.

The days passed and Ciro did not return. It was then that Rosario Ponce sent the last message to her friend and from there she lost contact with the world. He walked and fed on herbs and insects. At night he endured temperatures of 10 degrees below zero.

In Lima, the parents of both young people asked the National Police for help to locate and rescue their children. On April 13, forty agents of the Air and High Mountain Police turned to the search inch by inch and thus found only Rosario Ponce safe and sound near the Fortaleza hill, at the foot of the Chivay mountain range. She was dehydrated and her hands were numb from the intense cold. With her location, there was a chance of finding Ciro Castillo alive.

“Keep looking for my son, please”

The parents of Cyrus Red Castle they never gave up hope of finding their son alive. “Keep looking for my son, please”was the request of the student’s distraught mother, Rosario García Caballero.

The search work did not stop. National and foreign rescuers specialized in high mountains joined this inexhaustible work, including Topos Tlaltelolco from Mexico, the Vertical Solutions group, led by Christian Tataje.

On April 21, Ciro’s father, doctor Ciro CastilloDesperate to find no trace of his son, he offered a reward of S / 10 thousand for whoever found his offspring.

On May 19, 14 sinchis from the National Police, coming from the Mazamari base (Junín) joined the search. They covered large areas of the valley and on the 31st of that month they concluded their work without success and withdrew.

The search continued. Thus, on October 16, a mixed high-mountain team descended to the area called Capca and managed to see a red rag in the distance and took several photos and thus realized that it was a corpse. Two days later, they delivered the photographic and film material to the prosecutor María del Rosario Lozada Sotomayor, who directed the search and investigation of the case.

Thus, on October 20, said team of rescuers located the body of the young man on an almost inaccessible cliff in the middle of the rugged geography of the snow-capped Bomboya, an area known as Las Torres. The lifeless body was in a fetal position in the middle of a gorge. Subsequently, the prosecutor María del Rosario Lozada Sotomayor reported that the body was in a state of ‘saponification’ (soapy).

It was undoubtedly Ciro Castillo Rojo. He was wearing his red shirt, a gold chain and a watch that Rosario Ponce gave him days before they got lost in the mountains. Three days later the body was recovered and taken to the city of Arequipa.

On October 28, the remains of the young university student received a tribute at the Agrarian University of La Molina, and in the afternoon they were buried in the Huachipa Cemetery.

case filed

While the search for Ciro Castillo Rojo lasted, his family filed a formal complaint against Rosario Ponce for the boy’s disappearance. She claimed innocence at all times. During the investigations of the Prosecutor’s Office, the report of the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences of the Public Ministry determined that Ciro fell off a cliff, slipped and fell without the intervention of third parties.

Said document concluded that the young man died of severe polytrauma affecting the skull and spine, which caused his instant death, ruling out murder.

On August 2, 2013, the prosecutor María del Rosario Lozada defended the request to file the case and stated that she cannot file a complaint against Ponce López because “it is not certain” that the young woman pushed her ex-lover and thus demonstrate her responsibility for the crime of simple homicide.

On September 27, the Second Appeals Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of Arequipa, made up of superior judges Fernán Fernández, Sandro Lazo and Héctor Huanca, definitively filed the case for the alleged crime of homicide.