It had been more than twenty-four hours since they had been taken hostage. Fifty-seven prison guards and police, held by inmates in several prisons in Ecuador since Thursday evening, have been released, announced Friday 1er September the national comprehensive care service for adults deprived of their liberty and adolescent delinquents (SNAI).
The fifty constables and the seven police officers, “who were held in six prisons” different from the country, “have already been released, have undergone medical assessments to verify their health status and are in good health”the Ecuadorian prison administration said in a statement.
Laconic, the latter does not, however, give any other details either on the conditions of their release or on the circumstances of their hostage-taking, just like the authorities, who have observed complete silence since the announcement of the incident, the day before. .
Return to “normal” announced
“The Unified Command Post (PMU) directed the execution of the coordinated actions that made it possible to achieve this objective”simply stated the SNAI, asserting: “At the moment, activities are taking place normally in the centers” prisons. “We are concerned for the safety of our agents”admitted the Minister of the Interior, Juan Zapata, referring to “planned actions” aiming to “guarantee their safety”.
The main hostage-taking apparently took place in Cuenca prison, in the southwest of the country. A video posted on social networks, relayed by the local press but impossible to authenticate with certainty, showed a group of men in uniform, apparently held in a cell and calling on the government to negotiate.
The surroundings of the penitentiary establishment remained completely inaccessible on Friday by three cordons of security forces which prevented vehicles from approaching less than 1 kilometer, noted a photographer from Agence France-Presse on the spot. From a nearby hill, three inmates could be seen on the roof of the prison, one of them dressed, like a Santa Claus, in pajamas, a cap on his head, and a walkie-talkie in his hand. .
Response of criminal groups to cell searches
According to the SNAI, the hostage-taking was “a response of criminal groups after the interventions of the police force in the penitentiary centers of the country, the purpose of which is the discovery of prohibited objects which are used during the violence [entre détenus] »which have claimed some 430 lives since 2021.
“The measures we have taken, particularly in the prison system, have provoked violent reactions from criminal organizations that seek to intimidate the State”said for his part the president, Guillermo Lasso, on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
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On Wednesday, hundreds of soldiers and police carried out a search operation for weapons, ammunition and explosives in another prison in the south of the country, in Latacunga. In addition, six Colombians with a heavy criminal past, imprisoned for the assassination on August 9 of one of the favorites in the first round of the presidential election on August 20, had been transferred.
The simultaneous hostage-taking also took place after the explosion, on Thursday, of two car bombs in front of buildings belonging to the penitentiary administration in Quito, without causing any casualties. Twelve people, including one of Colombian nationality, were arrested for these facts, according to the authorities. An attempted mutiny also took place in a detention center for adolescents in the capital.
Wave of violence linked to drug trafficking
Once considered an island of peace in Latin America, Ecuador, located between Colombia and Peru, the world’s two largest producers of cocaine, has been affected for several months by an unprecedented wave of violence linked to organized crime and drug trafficking.
Despite numerous police raids, cell searches, prisoner transfers, gangs and drug traffickers continue to impose their law and clash in prisons, where the state still appears powerless to take the situation in hand.
Two gangs, Los Choneros and Los Lobos, known to work with the Mexican cartels, in particular took part in terrible massacres between prisoners who were members of rival gangs – victims burned alive or literally cut with knives.
On July 24, President Lasso declared a state of emergency throughout the country’s penitentiary system for sixty days, a measure which notably allows the State to send the army to the prisons. “ (…) We stand firm and will not back down from our goal of capturing dangerous criminals, dismantling criminal gangs and pacifying the country’s prisons.”assured once again Thursday Mr. Lasso.
Ecuador has thirty-six overcrowded prisons with 32,200 inmates, half of them for drug trafficking.