Ecuador’s president, Guillermo Lasso, has extended for another month the state of emergency declared in the country’s prisons, where more than 300 detainees have been killed since the beginning of 2020 in violent incidents between rival gangs.
A presidential decree signed the day before yesterday provides for the “mobilization” of the police and the army to “strengthen and restore order and control” in all penitentiaries in the country.
According to the text, which extends the measure until December 29, “criminal organizations operating inside detention centers have sophisticated weapons and have shown increased levels of violence and brutality.”
The head of state initially declared a state of emergency in prisons on September 29, following the deaths of 119 inmates at Guayaquil Prison (southwest). It was the worst massacre ever committed in a prison in Latin America. Some detainees were dismembered, beheaded or burned in the incidents.
On November 14, another 62 detainees were killed in the same prison when new clashes broke out between gangs involved in drug trafficking.
In the 65 prisons of Ecuador, the surplus population of inmates is around 30%. Weapons of all kinds, drugs, mobile phones are trafficked in large quantities inside.
Between Colombia and Peru, the two countries that produce the largest quantities of cocaine in the world, Ecuador has become a platform for drug trafficking to the US and the EU due to its porous borders, its dollarized economy and its major export ports. especially that of the capital of the state of Waia and the economic capital of the country. The government says it is seeing a sharp rise in crime due to drug trafficking.
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