A new riot broke out this Wednesday (27) at the Guayaquil Regional Penitentiary, in Ecuador, being the first since the president, Daniel Noboa, started a war against drug trafficking and the serious prison crisis experienced in the country three months ago.
Videos posted on social media show fires inside one of the wings of the prison center, apparently caused by burning mattresses, while some prisoners protest against the treatment of soldiers in prisons.
Although this riot has not yet been confirmed by the National Service for Comprehensive Attention to Persons Deprived of Liberty (SNAI), the Municipal Traffic Agency (ATM) of Guayaquil reported that the highway that passes in front of the prison was closed due to the police operation that is being held nearby.
The Guayaquil Regional Penitentiary has been one of the prisons most frequently searched by the police and the Armed Forces during the state of emergency decreed by the government, with recurring operations to seize weapons and prohibited objects among the prison population.
From this prison, José Adolfo Macías Villamar, known as “Fito”, leader of the criminal gang Los Choneros, who was serving a 34-year prison sentence for drug trafficking, illicit association and murder, escaped between the end of December last year and the beginning of January.
Until before the start of the state of emergency, Los Choneros, the largest and oldest criminal gang in Ecuador, had control over the interior of the prison, where they charged prisoners quotas for the type of cell they used and also for food, among others. elements of an extensive extortion scheme, according to witnesses.
This prison is part of the penitentiary complex in the coastal province of Guayas, whose capital is Guayaquil, where there are five prisons housing approximately 12 thousand inmates.
The Regional is the second largest prison in Ecuador, with around 4,500 inmates, behind only the Litoral Penitentiary, which is next door and houses around 5,500 inmates.
This new riot occurred less than two weeks before the end of the 30-day extension of the state of emergency decreed by Noboa with the aim of combating organized crime gangs, which he began to consider as terrorist groups and belligerent non-state actors.
This decision led to the deployment of military personnel to prisons with the aim of taking away criminal gangs' control over them, where their rivalries have caused a series of massacres since 2020, in which more than 500 inmates have been killed. (With EFE Agency)
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