The prison in the city of Santo Domingo in central Ecuadorwhere on Monday 44 prisoners were killed in a brawl between clans, was the scene this Wednesday of new disordersas confirmed by the Ecuadorian prison service.
(Also read: Ecuador: the framework that detonated in the prison massacre on Monday)
“Security protocols were activated immediatelywith the institutions in charge: Police and Armed Forces, due to alert of incidents in the Center for the Deprivation of Liberty of Santo Domingo No. (SNAI).
Apparently, several prisoners climbed onto the roofs of the prison facilities to demand protection.
The events occurred in the morning at the Bellavista social rehabilitation center, where the massacre occurred on Monday and from which 220 prisoners managed to escapealthough 200 have been recaptured, according to the authorities, who They have offered citizens $5,000 for information to help stop those who are still on the run.
Videos broadcast on social networks show several prisoners perched on a metal roof shouting at members of the security forces, as well as military uniforms cordoning off the prison perimeter.
Crisis of violence in the prisons of Ecuador
Audios attributed to medium security prisoners of that prison and distributed by networks also report some type of incident and the alarm caused among the inmates by the alleged arrival at the pavilion of members of organized groups.
The most recent data provided by the Human Rights Secretariat indicates that Of the 44 prisoners who died on Monday and whose bloody bodies were left in one of the penitentiary center courtyards, 42 were identified and a score handed over to their relatives.
Monday’s is the latest in a series of bloody riots that have claimed the lives of more than 400 inmates since 2020.of them 63 only in this 2022.
The director of the SNAI, Pablo Ramírez, estimated that there were 124 prisoners transferred from the Cuenca prison, where another riot occurred last month that left a score of prisoners deadto that of Santo Domingo, which would have motivated new quarrels.
These transfers were in compliance with habeas corpus granted by the Ecuadorian Justice at the request of the prisoners themselves, despite the opposition of the SNAI, the body in charge of managing and guarding Ecuadorian prisons.
This aggravated the overcrowding of the Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas prison, a prison with a capacity for 916 inmates but that at the end of April exceeded 1,600which represents an overpopulation of 76%, according to SNAI data.
international response
According to the director of the SNAI, there are currently 33,000 prisoners in the 36 centers that Ecuador haswhose total capacity is for just over 30,000.
The prison crisis that Ecuador is going through has led organizations such as the UNthrough the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to express their concern and ask the Ecuadorian government for urgent measures to reduce the prison population and take control of the prisons.
Ecuador is in the process of hiring 1,400 new prison officershas announced the granting of 5,000 pardons and developed the country’s first human rights policy towards the prison population.
EFE
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