Registration Prisoners who died during simultaneous riots Ecuador rose to three this fridayAs reported by the state prison agency, the National Comprehensive Care Service for Persons Deprived of Liberty (SNAI).
The third reported death occurred in Cuenca prison, one of six prisons where riots have been recorded so far. Inmates took more than 150 prison officers hostageThe vast majority are prison guards.
Earlier They were thrown out of prisons. corpses from two prisoners Machala and Azogues prisons, as confirmed by SNAI.
The Armed Forces later regained control of Machala prison in the southern province of El Oro. To this day, riots continue in prisons in the northern city of Esmeraldas, the central cities of Latacunga and Ambato, and the southern cities of Cuenca. Azogues and Loja.
A group of relatives gathered in the city of Latacunga to demand that the Government release their relative after four days in prison. But, The executive remains in a non-negotiating position Riots were also recorded, as well as the kidnapping and killing of police officers and a shooting at a television channel, after a “civil armed conflict” was declared on Tuesday following successive acts of violence by organized crime.
With this declaration, criminal gangs began to be viewed by the Government as terrorist groups and aggressive non-state actors, and therefore military targets were neutralized.
At least 16 people have died so far in the crisis of violenceIncluding the two police officers killed on Tuesday.
The events occurred as the Government of President Daniel Noboa was preparing to implement a plan to regain control of Ecuador’s prisons, many of which are internally dominated by these criminal groups and whose rivalry has led to the killing of more than 450 inmates in a series of prison massacres since 2020. . This violence has also spilled over into the streets, making Ecuador one of the most violent countries in the world, with 45 premeditated murders per 100,000 people in 2023.