Live broadcast continues
Gunmen storm TV studio in Ecuador
January 9, 2024, 10:18 p.m
In Ecuador, masked and armed men break into a live broadcast on state television. They take several journalists hostage. One of them writes: “They have come to kill us.”
In Ecuador, armed and partly masked men stormed the state television station TC in Guayaquil during a live broadcast. As live footage showed, they took several journalists and other employees hostage. “Don’t shoot, please don’t shoot,” a woman shouted as shots were heard while men armed with guns and grenades beat people in the TV studio and forced them to the ground.
The live broadcast was not interrupted even though the lights on the set went out. About 30 minutes after the gunmen showed up, police could be seen arriving. “Police, police,” shouted a man in uniform. “We have an injured colleague,” said one man. “They came to kill us. God, don’t let that happen. The criminals are on the air,” one of the journalists said in a Whatsapp message to the AFP news agency.
The police said that units in Quito and Guayaquil had been informed of the “criminal act” and had already arrived on site. According to unconfirmed reports, the men have already been arrested. The incident came a day after Ecuador declared a nationwide state of emergency following the prison escape of a notorious drug lord. During the next 60 days, the military will be deployed in the country’s prisons and streets, and there will also be a nighttime curfew between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m.
Following the announcement, at least four police officers were kidnapped. The influential gang leader José Adolfo Macías alias “Fito” escaped from the maximum security prison in the port city of Guayaquil on Sunday. Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa said he wanted to use the state of emergency to ensure that the armed forces had “full political and legal support” in the fight against drug-related crime. Noboa was elected in October and had vowed to combat drug-related crime and violence in the South American country, which in recent years has become a major transit point for the cocaine trade with the United States and Europe.