The president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, declared this Thursday (3) a new 60-day state of exception that includes the capital Quito and six of the country’s 24 provinces, as well as a municipality in a seventh province, to continue the “internal armed conflict” that he decreed at the beginning of the year against organized crime groups.
This new state of exception covers the provinces of Guayas, where Guayaquil, the most populous city in Ecuador, is located, Los Ríos, El Oro, Manabí, Santa Elena and Orellana, as well as the canton (municipality) of Camilo Ponce Enríquez, an enclave of mining in the province of Azuay, where different criminal groups tried to control illegal mining activities.
These territories were already part of the previous state of exception decreed by Noboa, which has been in force for three months, with the new addition that Quito has now been added, due to the “increase in hostilities, the practice of crimes and the intensity of the prolonged presence of organized armed groups”, according to the presidential decree.
The objective of this measure is to neutralize the activity of criminal gangs and “assist the actions of the Armed Forces in maintaining the sovereignty and integrity of the State, and of the National Police in citizen security, internal protection and public order”.
In the regions covered by the measure, and during the 60 days it is in force, the rights to the inviolability of home and correspondence, as well as freedom of assembly, will be suspended.
The suspension of the right to the inviolability of the home will consist of inspections, raids and corresponding searches by the Armed Forces and the National Police, leading to the location and search of places where members of criminal groups are hiding.
This state of exception also implies a curfew from 10pm to 5am in some of the locations with the highest crime rates and the presence of organized gangs, such as Durán, which is part of the metropolitan region of Guayaquil, and Babahoyo and Quevedo, in the province of Los Rios.
The measure will be analyzed by the Constitutional Court of Ecuador, which in previous months twice annulled the previous state of exception declared by Noboa, claiming that the declaration of “internal armed conflict” was not sufficient reason to take this exceptional measure.
Ecuador became the first country in Latin America in homicides per capita, with a rate of 47.2 per 100 thousand inhabitants in 2023, eight times higher than in 2016, as a result of the increase in violence caused by criminal groups, mainly dedicated drug trafficking, although they are also making forays into illegal mining.
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