In an interview with local radio station Radio Pichincha, Leon recounted that Adara, the boat she was traveling on, was intercepted in international waters by Israeli forces.

This, the young woman insisted, amounts to a kidnapping. For more than 10 hours, they were held at gunpoint, unable to move or eat, before being forcibly taken to the port of Ashdod.

Leon added: “They beat us, they violated us, they stripped us naked. They ripped off the hijabs of our Muslim companions. They beat me for translating for a Colombian companion,” while also reporting psychological torture and sleep deprivation during her detention.

Meanwhile, Carmen Alexandra Portero, who traveled on the Sunflower boat with activists from Germany and Turkey, stated that the flotilla faced “persecution and boycott” from Cypriot and Greek authorities before setting sail.

“We experienced harassment and threats. It only confirmed what we already knew: Western states are complicit in genocide,” she said in the interview with the Ecuadorian media outlet from Berlin.

Portero asserted that even the transfer of food and medicine destined for Gaza was prevented: “We were carrying humanitarian aid and they prohibited us. It was a brutal confirmation of how colonial power operates.”

Both agreed that their personal experiences should not distract attention from the Palestinian tragedy: “If we were treated like this, imagine the daily torture they endure in Gaza or the West Bank. The focus must be on Palestine,” insisted Leon.

For his part, Assemblyman Gustavo Mateus, of the Citizens’ Revolution, expressed outrage at what happened to these two young women: “Humiliated and mistreated without the government defending them, our compatriots were sent back in their attempt to reach Gaza. Despite our formal requests, the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry shone, as always, with its silence and inaction.”

jdt/ro/avr