The new prison massacre of Ecuadorwhich occurred on Monday in the prison of the Andean city of Latacunga, with a balance so far of 15 dead and 33 woundedhas caused the number of prisoners who died in these brawls this year to rise to more than 100, already more than 450 since 2020.
Before this new episode, the prisoners who have died since the beginning of 2022 in Ecuadorian prisons amounted to 90, as reported last week in an interview with Efe by Pablo Ramírez, outgoing director of the National Penitentiary Service (SNAI), which is in charge of guarding Ecuadorian prisons.
With the 15 fatalities of the brawl that took place on Monday in the Latacunga prison, located in the central Andean province of Cotopaxi, the annual toll rises to 105, in the context of a crisis between rival gangs vying for internal control of the prisons whose result was 46 prisoners murdered in 2020 and 316 in 2021.
The massacre in Latacunga, one of the largest prisons in Ecuador and officially known as Cotopaxi Social Rehabilitation Center Number 1, is the fourth prison massacre of the year after the two that occurred in the prison of Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas and in Cuenca.
In Cuenca there were 20 dead and 10 wounded on April 3, and in Santo Domingo first 44 inmates were killed and 10 wounded on May 9, while more than two months later, on July 18, another similar confrontation ended. with 12 killed and 2 wounded.
Machetes and firearms
The searches carried out after these episodes revealed that the inmates had large arsenals of weapons in their possession, from firearms such as pistols and even rifles to large white weapons such as machetes, as well as a large number of bullets.
The brawl in the Latacunga prison began after the census that the SNAI is carrying out on the entire prison population of the country was completed in this center, in which it seeks to gather information from the more than 32,000 prisoners nationwide to provide them with better care and services.
The clashes began around 1:00 p.m. local time (6:00 p.m. GMT) in the medium-security pavilion, which caused several inmates to climb onto the roofs of the prison center to escape the brawl, as those passing by on the nearby road managed to appreciate. the prison
Among the 15 killed in this brawl is allegedly Leandro ‘El Patron’ Norero, alleged “capo” of drug trafficking in Ecuadorr, whose body was identified among the corpses, according to the governor of Cotopaxi, Oswaldo Coronel, in the absence of tests to confirm his identity.
New ‘incident’
When the authorities considered the situation in the Latacunga prison under control, new “incidents” arose this Tuesday morning when detonations occurred in one of the facilities of the medium-security pavilion, where most of those murdered in the prison were found. eve.
This new confrontation leaves at least 11 new people injured, according to the governor of Cotopaxi, Oswaldo Coronel.
Just two weeks ago, in the Latacunga prison, three police officers were arrested when they allegedly tried to enter almost 500 bullets camouflaged inside a vest into the penitentiary.
Within the framework of the actions to placate the prison crisis in Ecuador, last week the vice president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and rapporteur for persons deprived of liberty, Stuardo Ralón, paid a visit to Quito, who highlighted the progress of the Government in reducing overcrowding in prisons.
Ralón’s visit took place within the framework of the first anniversary of the largest prison massacre in Ecuador’s history, which occurred at the Litoral Penitentiary in Guayaquil, where more than 120 inmates were murdered on September 28, 2021.
More guards and tech on the way
Among the recommendations made to the State by the IACHR is that of recovering internal control of prisons, providing decent conditions for prisoners, reducing overcrowding, not abusing preventive (provisional) detention, and developing a crime prevention policy where incarceration prevails.
In that sense, The Government has begun the hiring of 1,300 new prison guards who will practically double the current workforce of 1,600 and next year it plans to incorporate another thousand morewhile equipping all prisons with scanners, cell phone jammers and surveillance centers.
Meanwhile, five non-governmental organizations based in European countries called on Tuesday for “urgent measures” to stop the prison massacres in Ecuador and pointed to the Government as responsible for these events that they consider human rights violations for not guaranteeing the lives of inmates. in your custody.
EFE
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