Four children, including a five-month-old baby, were shot to death inside their home in Ecuador by hitmen who entered and opened fire on the family.
The Prosecutor's Office opened “an investigation into the murder of 4 children,” as indicated on its social network account X. The minors shot were five months, three, five and seven years old and, according to the Police, they were not the initial target stroke.
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According to the investigating entity, “his parents were injured” in the middle of the shooting that occurred inside a home located in the Guasmo Sur sector, an impoverished area of Guayaquil (southwest) and dominated by the criminal gangs Los Lagartos and Mafia. 18.
The government noted that this murder “demonstrates the cruelty” with which armed groups act in the country, where homicides quadrupled between 2018 and 2022.
Guayaquil is one of the most violent cities in Ecuadorsurrounded by drug traffickers who sow terror in their struggle for control of the territory for the passage of drugs.
“This fact is a deep and painful blow for our families and for the country,” added the presidency.
General Víctor Herrera, commander of Guayaquil and the surrounding Durán and Samborondón, stated in a press conference that the mother of the minors is hospitalized with a “reserved prognosis.”
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According to the police high command, “the violent event was not directed at that family, but at an adjacent house” where the uniformed officers found material “to carry out attacks with explosives.”
The hitmen entered the house around 9 pm this Monday, December 11, and fired multiple shots in an attack that, according to authorities, was directed against the Los Lagartos gang.
“What happened to the four children in Guayas cannot be indifferent to us. It is heartbreaking that, when criminal structures do not achieve their objectives, violence escalates to this level,” warned Attorney General Diana Salazar.
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According to the semiannual report of the Ecuadorian Organized Crime Observatory, between January 2019 and June 2022, homicides of young people between 15 and 19 years old increased by 500%. That is, it went from 41 deaths to 246.
The document also records 61 violent deaths of children up to 14 years old in the first half of 2023.
Ecuador reached the record of 26 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2022. That figure could climb this year to reach 40 murders per 100,000 people, according to experts.
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AFP and EFE
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