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 and 154 killed and wounded recognized by Asociación de ex combatientes del Cenepa, Quito, Ecuador. 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, 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
Following the Ecuadorian-Peruvian war of 1941, both countries had signed in 1942 a Peace Treaty known as the Rio Protocol. This treaty — brokered by the USA, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina, which became known as the "guarantors" of the peace settlement — had the main purpose of defining the hitherto badly defined borders between Ecuador and Peru. The process of demarcation, begun in mid-1942, came to a halt in 1948, when populist Ecuadorian President José María Velasco Ibarra declared the Protocol impossible to implement in the area of the "Cordillera del Cóndor", claiming inconsistencies between the instructions of the Protocol and the geographical realities on the ground.