The President of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, declared, Wednesday, September 29, a state of emergency in all prisons, the day after a new massacre between rival gangs in a prison in the southwest of the country which has killed a hundred people.
These latest clashes, the deadliest this year, took place in the vast prison complex of Guayas, in Guayaquil, a port city and commercial hub. “More than a hundred detainees were killed and fifty-two were injured”, announced Wednesday evening, the prison services (SNAI). A previous report reported thirty prisoners killed in these clashes. According to SNAI, police and prosecutors “Continue to collect information” in the prison.
After the announcement of this new assessment, President Lasso declared that he had “Declared a state of emergency throughout the prison system at the national level”, while Ecuadorian prisons have for months been the scene of recurrent violence between criminal groups linked to drug trafficking. “In Gayaquil, I will chair the crisis committee responsible for coordinating the actions necessary to control the emergency, guaranteeing the human rights of all those involved”said Mr. Lasso.
Acabo de decretar el Estado de Excepción en todo el sistema carcelario a nivel nacional. In Guayaquil presided over … https://t.co/2rI3GVKVtP
In July, the head of state had already declared a state of emergency in prisons, after the death of twenty prisoners in a new bout of violence. He then promised “A process of total restructuring of the prison system”, replacing the director of the prison administration by a soldier. The state of emergency marks an additional step in the action of the authorities and a direct handling of the subject by the Head of State.
Dozens of families waiting
The police have announced that they are again ready to intervene in the prison “Due to an alert on possible new clashes between criminal gangs”. According to General Fausto Buenano, who led the operations to regain control of the buildings, the victims were wearing “Impacts of projectiles from firearms and shrapnel from grenades”, while at least six of the prisoners were beheaded.
On Wednesday, mounted police and soldiers guarded the exterior of the complex, where dozens of people were seeking information about their imprisoned relatives. “We want information because we don’t know anything about our families, our children. I have my son here ”a woman who did not reveal her identity told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
This new riot is a reminder that the prison crisis continues in Ecuador, a consequence of murderous rivalries between drug trafficking gangs linked to the formidable Mexican cartels of Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generacion, explain the experts.
Two of the gangs that support these cartels have around 20,000 members nationwide, police estimate. Violence has become almost permanent in prisons in the country of 17.7 million people, located between Colombia and Peru, the world’s main producers of cocaine, and used as a transit zone for shipment to the states. -United and Europe.
Record drug seizures
“Some 3.5 billion dollars [3 milliards d’euros] per year are laundered in Ecuador ”, or “Public institutions are plagued by corruption”, reminds AFP Fernando Carrion, security expert. Nearly 116 tons of drugs, mostly cocaine, were seized between January and August 2021, against a record 128 tons for 2020.
“There has been a prison crisis since 2010, with an average of twenty-five homicides per year, but it has accelerated considerably from 2017 until the peak of this year”, says Carrion. One third of inmates “Comes from criminal organizations linked to international drug trafficking”, specifies this expert.
Before Tuesday’s violence, the number of prisoners who have killed each other behind bars in Ecuador since early 2021 stood at 123, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) based on Ecuadorian official figures.
In mid-September, one of the buildings of the Guayas penitentiary had been the target of an attack by drones loaded with explosives from outside the establishment, which had not caused any casualties but illustrated the “War between international cartels”, according to the authorities. The Ecuadorian penitentiary system has nearly sixty-five prisons and some 39,000 prisoners, with a capacity of around 30,000 places, or an overcrowding of 30%.