President of Ecuador: Colombian prisoners 'we must leave them at the border'

Some 1,500 Colombians imprisoned in Ecuador will be repatriated, President Daniel Noboa announced on Thursdaywho with the support of the military seeks to take control of penitentiaries under the power of drug trafficking groups that sow terror in the country.

(Read also: How did Ecuador come to be in check due to criminal gangs?).

Colombia rejects this unilateral measure and maintains that, in fact, these repatriates would be released.

Twenty organizations use prisons as criminal offices from where they manage drug trafficking and they lead one of the worst attacks against the State that over four days leaves 16 dead and 178 prison guards and employees held by inmates.

According to Noboa, the decision responds to overcrowding in prisons that have an excess of about 3,000 people, although the measure did not sit well with the Colombian government.

“That is why we are releasing 1,500 Colombians and we also need to build maximum and super maximum security prisons,” said the 36-year-old president in an interview with FM Mundo radio.

(Keep reading: Ecuador will require criminal records from foreigners on the border with Colombia).

In a statement, Colombia rejected the “massive” repatriation and assured that it must be “studyed case by case” and “have the consent of the person deprived of liberty.”

But Noboa, in power since November, assures that the law supports him. “We must leave them at the border and there are international agreements that support it, and we must make an urgent decision”said the 36-year-old president. With Bogotá “we have already been in talks for several weeks, we are protected by our law and also international agreements,” he insisted.

For Colombia's leftist government, Noboa plans an “expulsion”, which “would constitute a unilateral decision of the Ecuadorian State that would render null and void the judicial decisions of its justice bodies in Colombia.” That is, the prisoners would be released on the other side of the border.

(We recommend: Noboa ratifies toughness against 'terrorists' after a criminal leader's request to surrender).

Ecuador has 36 prisons with capacity for almost 30,200 people. A 2022 prison census established that there were 31,300 prisoners, of which 3,200 were foreigners.

Criminal gangs linked to cartels in Colombia and Mexico turned prisons into battlefields, dwhere they clash over drug loot in clashes that have left more than 460 inmates dead since 2021.

AFP