«We live with the constant fear that something could happen at any moment. We are no longer even sure of leaving our home. My wife had to change jobs and now she works from home.” Carlos Alberto Muñoz is 31 years old and lives in Quito, the capital of Ecuador. The South American country has, for years, been overwhelmed by a wave of violence, unleashed by criminal drug trafficking gangs. Ecuador is located between Colombia and Peru, the top two cocaine producers in the world. According to official data, in 2023 the number of violent deaths exceeded the threshold of 8 thousand deaths, doubling in 2022. A massacre that the newly elected president Alvaro Noboa is trying to stop. But last Monday everything collapsed. The leader of the Los Choneros drug trafficking cartel Adolfo Macias escapes from the maximum security prison in Guayaquil.
And in Ecuador violence explodes once again. «In these last days it is no longer possible to be totally safe – says Carlos Alberto -. There is no certainty of leaving the house or going to work peacefully. Panic is also spreading because social networks, the media and the statements of various public institutions saturate the news we receive every day.”
No one is safe anymore even far from the big urban centres: «A dear friend of mine and her husband had to leave Santo Domingo (a town in the west of the country) because the representatives of a criminal group showed up in their business to ask for those who here they call “vaccines”, i.e. extortions to allow traders to continue working. Furthermore, my parents in Loja were contacted on several occasions by the cartels, who offered to launder their money if necessary” explains the 31-year-old.
Among the measures adopted to combat the gangs, the government has proclaimed a 11pm curfew: «It is not the first they have imposed on us in the last 4 years – he says -. At the beginning it certainly gave peace of mind to know that there would be more control through patrols, but we have seen that despite the measures decreed, criminals continue to operate. I believe that the curfew does nothing but fuel fear and aggravate the problem.”
Then there are those who have experienced the actions of drug traffickers firsthand: «Two years ago I was robbed – says Maximo, who lives in Quito – and in August I suffered another attack in my house. They also stole my car.” But the violent actions are not limited to small thefts: «The gangs also organize terrorist acts – denounces the 64-year-old – by placing bombs on pedestrian bridges in the centres. They usually prefer places where there is a strong concentration of police.”
The situation is out of control and many Ecuadorians, now resigned, are leaving the country. «The number of families who emigrate is very high», underlines Maximo, and in many cases they leave South America because «the small businesses, which provided most of the work, have closed due to the “vaccines”» leaving «many people without use”. “Our economy is almost dead, there is no future, it will be difficult to change Ecuador” he concludes sadly.
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