Terrible scenes in Ecuador: In the port city of Guayaquil, prison inmates attacked each other with firearms and hand grenades. There were also beheadings.
Guayaquil – They attacked each other with firearms and hand grenades, and according to the public prosecutor’s office there were also beheadings: The scenes that took place in a prison in Ecuador are shocking. Now the head of government of the South American country is reacting to the brutal fighting with more than a hundred dead.
President Guillermo Lasso, who has only been in office for a few months, has declared a state of emergency in the country’s prisons. Lasso announced on Twitter on Wednesday (29.09.2021) that he would be chairing an emergency meeting to bring the situation under control. Members of rival gangs armed with firearms and grenades fought one another in a prison in Guayaquil on Tuesday.
The police had initially given the number of deaths in the fighting in the prison in Guayaquil as 24. On Wednesday (29.09.2021) the authorities then corrected the numbers significantly upwards. President Lasso said at a press conference that 116 people were killed and nearly 80 others injured in the “unfortunate incident”. The prison authorities said there were “more than a hundred” inmates killed and 52 injured. It is not the first revolt in the country: at the beginning of the year there were several uprisings in prisons – with 75 dead.
Chaotic scenes during the prison revolt in Ecuador: the military has to move in with tanks
According to the prosecutor, at least six of the inmates were beheaded. Accordingly, there were also two police officers among the injured. Guayaquil police chief Fausto Buenano said a police storm on the building prevented “more deaths”.
On Wednesday, the prison complex in Guayaquil was surrounded by soldiers and a tank, and police officers on horseback patrolled the wider area of the prison. Relatives of inmates at the prison spoke to the officers with concern. “We want information because we don’t know anything about our relatives, our sons,” said a woman who wanted to remain anonymous. “My son is there.”
In the chronically overcrowded Ecuadorian prisons, clashes occur again and again between members of gangs connected to Mexican drug cartels. According to the Ecuadorian Ombudsman for Human Rights, 103 people were killed in prisons in the country last year.
Uprising in prison in Ecuador: There are always bloody clashes between drug gangs
This year around 180 prison inmates in Ecuador were killed in bloody riots. Experts attribute the fact that prison inmates can smuggle weapons into prisons to the widespread corruption among the guards.
Last week, police confiscated 500 rounds of ammunition, a hand grenade, several knives, two pistols, a revolver and explosive material in a Guayaquil prison. Another prison in the city was attacked with drones two weeks ago. The prison authorities blamed the “war between international cartels” for this.
Revolt in prison in Ecuador: the country is a hub for international drug trafficking
With its location between the major drug producers Colombia and Peru, Ecuador is an important hub for drug smuggling to the USA and Europe. Guayaquil in southwest Ecuador is the country’s most important port city. It is considered the central hub for the cocaine trade, which is used in particular by the Mexican drug gangs Sinaloa and Jalisco Nuevo Generación. According to official information, the Ecuadorian authorities confiscated 116 tons of narcotics, mainly cocaine, between January and August. Investigators confiscated 128 tons of drugs throughout 2020.
In Ecuador there has been a “prison crisis” since 2010, security expert Fernando Carrion told the AFP news agency. On average over the past eleven years, there have been 25 murders in the country’s prisons. The situation has worsened dramatically since 2017. There are a total of 65 prisons in Ecuador that can accommodate around 30,000 inmates. In fact, there are currently around 39,000 inmates in the institutions. (judo / AFP)
