- State security forces and criminal gangs are currently engaged in fierce battles in Ecuador.
- The prosecutor César Suárez was killed.
- The country is in a state of emergency.
César Suárez was shot dead in his car by contract killers in the port city of Guayaquil, the Attorney General’s Office announced on Wednesday (local time). This crime will not go unpunished, said Attorney General Diana Salazar in a video. “The criminals and terrorists will not stop us,” said Salazar.
Among other things, Suárez investigated the alleged gang members who stormed a state television studio last week and took numerous hostages. The President of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, then issued a decree declaring that Ecuador was in an internal armed conflict. He sent the armed forces to fight the gangs.
The security situation in Ecuador had recently deteriorated dramatically. The murder rate of 46.5 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants last year was the highest in Ecuador’s history and one of the highest in Latin America. Multiple gangs with ties to powerful Mexican cartels are fighting for control of drug trafficking routes. Ecuador is a major transit country for cocaine from Colombia, Peru and Bolivia that is smuggled to the United States and Europe.
Legend:
Prosecutor Suarez’s car shows several bullet holes.
KEYSTONE/ JONATHAN MIRANDA