Quito was the target of unusual grenade attacks and at least two car bombings against Ecuador’s prison authority, whose prisons function as operations centers for drug gangs.
(In addition: Colombia and three other countries in the region, against the banana fungus in crops)
The attacks, which began on Wednesday night in a commercial area of Quito, left no victims. They are a new example of the power of organized crime in an increasingly violent country, which until a few years ago was an oasis of peace between Colombia and Peru, the world’s two largest cocaine producers.
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The two car bombs, a sedan and a pickup truck, were loaded with gas cylinders, an AFP photographer confirmed. One of them exploded facing the current headquarters of the state body in charge of prisons (SNAI) and the other at the foot of a building that previously housed SNAI offices.
The director of Police Anti-Drug Investigation, General Pablo Ramírez, told the press that the sedan had “two gas cylinders with fuel, slow match and apparently wads of dynamite”.
“There are no people affected,” firefighters reported.
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In the midst of the bloody war between gangs, prisons have been the focus of several massacres that have left more than 430 prisoners dead since 2021.
In addition, three grenades exploded in Quito, informed the mayor Pabel Muñoz through the social network X, formerly Twitter.
Six people, including a Colombian national, were detained several kilometers from the site of one of the explosions, according to Ramírez. They have a record for extortion, robbery, murder and are allegedly linked to the attack, he added.
“Three of them were arrested 15 days ago for the theft of a truck and kidnapping for extortion in different parts of the city and they were released with alternative measures,” said the police chief.
(Also read: ‘Caught thief will be burned’: the cartel gaining strength in Quito, Ecuador)
Attacks in Quito this Thursday.
transferred prisoners
Although murders, kidnappings and extortions are multiplying in Ecuador, this type of attack is rare in the Ecuadorian capital.
The sedan and truck were destroyed. According to the police, two citizens on a motorcycle “would have thrown flammable liquid” against the parked sedan and loaded with two gas cylinders.
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The SNAI transferred prisoners to other penitentiaries on Wednesday to avoid clashes between drug gangs.
Ramirez maintained that the change of prison of the inmates “possibly would be” what motivated the explosion of the car bombs in that place.
In January 2018, a car bomb exploded in front of a police station in an Ecuadorian town on the border with Colombia (north), with a balance of 23 minor injuries.
(Keep reading: How orderly President Guillermo Lasso really leaves the accounts in Ecuador)
Violence intensifies in the middle of the electoral campaign for the presidential elections in Ecuador, prior to the ballot on October 15. One of the front-runners, former journalist Fernando Villavicencio, was shot dead by Colombian hitmen on August 9 in Quito.
retained guards
Faced with the war waged by organizations allied to Mexican and Colombian cartels, Lasso decreed a 60-day state of emergency for the entire Ecuadorian prison system on July 24, which allows him to deploy the military to control the prisons.
Under that mandate, hundreds of soldiers and police intervened on Wednesday to search for weapons, ammunition and explosives in a prison located in the Andean city of Latacunga (south), one of the main ones in the nation and one of the scenes of the killings between prisoners.
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![Quito](https://www.eltiempo.com/files/article_content_new/uploads/2023/08/31/64f0ad2d875a7.jpeg)
Attacks in Quito this Thursday.
In protest against the intervention, inmates from the prison in the city of Cuenca (southern Andes) detained prison guards. “The retained servers are in good condition,” said the SNAI, without specifying whether they have already been released.
The port city of Guayaquil (southwest), the second largest in Ecuador, has become a bastion of drug violencewhich has intensified with car bombs, prison massacres, dismembered corpses and hanging from bridges, kidnappings and extortion.
(You can read: Insecurity and economic crisis, the challenges of the next president of Ecuador)
Drug gangs, which use prisons as operations centers, also clash on the streets, where the homicide rate rose to a record 26 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2022, almost double the previous year.
Since 2021, Ecuador, located between Colombia and Peru, the world’s top cocaine producers, has seized some 530 tons of cocaine.
AFP
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