Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso established on Tuesday 1er November the state of emergency in two coastal provinces where a wave of violence by drug gangs left at least five policemen dead a few hours earlier.
“I declare a state of emergency in the provinces of Guayas and Esmeraldas, and a curfew from 9 p.m.” (3 hours in France), announced the Head of State in a speech broadcast on radio and television. The Constitution allows the president to declare a state of emergency and call in the army when the country is faced with serious internal unrest.
The Interior Ministry said Tuesday’s attacks had “five dead among the police” in Guayaquil, the economic heart of the country and capital of Guayas (southwest) and in the neighboring town of Duran.
Earlier, Interior Minister Juan Zapata reported the death of two policemen in Guayaquil, as well as two others injured. The two police officers were shot and killed in their vehicle in Guayaquil and the other two were injured in an attack on a police station in the same city on Tuesday at dawn, in response to a transfer of 200 prisoners, it was then specified. the police.
” Declaration of war “
For its part, the prison administration announced that eight prison guards had been briefly taken hostage on Tuesday in Esmeraldas (northwest of Ecuador).
“It is a reaction of organized crime”Interior Minister Juan Zapata told reporters in Quito, noting that there had been a total of nine attacks. “The eight agents of the Prison Security and Surveillance Corps detained have been released” in Esmeraldas, the prison administration (SNAI) had announced to the press via WhatsApp, without providing further details.
In a video posted on Twitter, two people carrying explosives around their bodies were presented as prison guards, while an inmate denounced the ” corruption “ of the prison system. “If you want war, you will have war”launched a hooded man, adding: “we are going to blow these guards up”.
Addressing the nation, the Ecuadorian president affirmed that “These acts of sabotage and terrorism are a declaration of open war against the rule of law, the government and against all of you, the citizens”.
Ties to Mexican cartels
On Monday, the decapitated bodies of two people were found hanging from a bridge in Esmeraldas, according to police in this country hit by drug-related crime. In February, Ecuadorian police found two bodies tied and hanging from a bridge in the town of Duran, a method often employed by Mexican cartels. Explosive attacks were committed in the months that followed in several regions of the country.
Drug traffickers, some of whom are linked to Mexican cartels, are waging war on the streets and in prisons across the country, where massacres have claimed nearly 400 lives since February 2021.
Located between Colombia and Peru, the world’s largest producers of cocaine, Ecuador has gone from being a drug transit country to that of a major distribution center to Europe and the United States.
In 2021, authorities seized a record 210 tons of drugs, mostly cocaine. Since the beginning of the year, seizures have totaled 160 tonnes.