Missing Ecuadoran lawyer found murdered: government

A 34-year-old lawyer was found murdered in Ecuador 10 days after going missing, the government said Wednesday, lamenting the latest femicide in a country plagued by gender-based killings.

The body of Maria Belen Bernal was found on a hill some five kilometers (3.1 miles) from the Quito police training school where she went missing on September 11 during a visit to her husband there, Interior Minister Patricio Carrillo said on Twitter.

"I deeply regret her death, a femicide that will not go unpunished," Carrillo said.

President Guillermo Lasso, also on Twitter, vowed that Belen's "femicide will not go unpunished and all those responsible will be subject to the law."

Bernal disappeared after entering the police college to visit her husband, Lieutenant German Caceres, who worked there, according to her family.

Two days after she was reported missing, Caceres also disappeared, sparking a manhunt and his dismissal from his job.

According to the prosecutor's office, at least 573 femicides have been registered in Ecuador's population of 17.7 million since 2014.

On Monday, a prosecutor investigating hate crimes and femicide was himself murdered outside the Ecuadoran public prosecutor's office in Guayaquil, authorities said.