At least 18 inmates died in a new outbreak of prison violence that began on Saturday in Ecuador and lasted until Tuesday, when the military and police entered the Guayaquil penitentiary (southwest) to regain control, the Prosecutor’s Office reported.
“So far, the death of 18 deprived of their liberty has been confirmed, after the clashes that took place since Saturday at the Litoral Penitentiary, in Guayaquil.
“In addition, 11 people (including a police officer) were injured,” the Prosecutor’s Office said on its Twitter account.
In principle, The body that administers the prisons (SNAI) had reported on Saturday “three minor injuries” for an incident in that prison, also known as Guayas 1. By Sunday, the entity confirmed a confrontation between criminal gangs inside the prison and reported six dead and 11 wounded.
This Tuesday a contingent of 2,700 uniformed officers, including military and police officers, entered the penitentiary to retake control. The intervention took place within the framework of a state of emergency declared throughout the prison system for 60 days.
(Also read: Shock in Ecuador: Agustín Intriago, mayor of Manta, is murdered)
2,700 brave police officers and soldiers are currently inside the Litoral Penitentiary and will remain coordinated and take control, in compliance with the provisions of the state of emergency.#OurWorkContinues https://t.co/yd6xlag8ow
— Guillermo Lasso (@LassoGuillermo) July 25, 2023
“The State puts order in the Litoral Penitentiary because the coercive force will never bow down,” President Guillermo Lasso wrote on his account on the X social network, formerly called Twitter.
The president included in his message photographs showing heavily armed uniformed men guarding dozens of prisoners in a courtyard. The inmates appear bare-chested, some sitting and others lying face down, and with their hands tied.
The authorities have not reported on the situation of 96 detained prison guides in five prisons as a result of the clashes in Guayas 1. Nor have they mentioned the prisoners who declared a hunger strike in 13 centers.
(You may be interested in: “They killed the mayor”: the video when the attack against Agustín Intriago in Manta occurs)
Relatives of the detainees await news at the door of the Guayas 1 prison.
The serious panorama in the prisons of Ecuador
Since February 2021, Ecuadorian prisons are recurring scenes of massacres that leave more than 420 inmates murdered and a trail of terror with decapitated and cremated bodies.
Criminal gangs have turned prisons into their centers of operations. There they dispute the control of the territory for drug trafficking, a growing evil in
Ecuador.
Outside the jail, a hundred relatives of the inmates were waiting for news. Ambulances and vehicles from the criminalistics unit entered the prison, an AFP journalist confirmed.
(Also: How is Ecuador becoming fertile ground for drug trafficking?)
![](https://www.eltiempo.com/images/1x1.png)
Soldiers guard the exterior of the Guayas 1 prison after a fight between rival gangs.
The document on the state of emergency in the prison system recounts the horror of the clashes on Sunday. That day there was a “fire”, the “use of firearms” and the “beheading of a person deprived of liberty”.
The military entered the Guayas 1 prison at dawn. “The mission is to be able to restore order in this detention center in order to safeguard the life, health, and safety of persons deprived of liberty,” General Nelson Proaño, general commander of the armed forces, told the press earlier.
He added that the explosions heard in the area were the product of “detonations carried out by elite groups of the Armed Forces precisely to be able to take control of the income.”
According to Proaño, a soldier was injured by a shrapnel.
The mission is to be able to restore order in this deprivation center
A recent census established that in the 36 local jails – with capacity for some 30,000 people – there is a population of 31,321 prisoners. Most were arrested for drug trafficking. There are barely 2,897 prison guards in the country, who work in shifts.
Last year, a pacification committee created by the government of President Guillermo Lasso branded Ecuadorian prisons “warehouses for human beings and torture centers.”
Located between Colombia and Peru, the world’s main producers of cocaine,
Ecuador has seized 455 tons of drugs since Lasso took office in May 2021. That year the annual record for drug seizures was recorded, some 210 tons.
AFP
#wave #prison #violence #Ecuador #leaves #inmates #dead