Five people, including three prison service workers aged 26 to 31, were killed and another seriously injured in two new gunmen’s attacks in Ecuador on Thursday, authorities said.

The three prison service workers were killed while they were “outside the Guayas penitentiary complex,” SNAI said.

At the same prison, which is in Guayaquil, Ecuador’s major port and financial capital where gang violence has turned gangrene, six inmates were found hanged in their cells last Wednesday.

The three women were the target of an attack by “paid assassins”, explained to the press the director general of SNAI, Guillermo Rodríguez.

Ecuador’s prisons have become the scene of repeated, deadly massacres between prisoners, against the backdrop of a war between gangs for control of the drug trade.

Two more people were killed Thursday and another seriously injured in the town of Posorja, not far from Guayaquil, police said.

The victims were on a boat off the port of Posorha when they came under “fire” from about ten gunmen, according to police chief Edison Rodrigues.

On Tuesday, about 30 gunmen opened fire in a small fishing port in Esmeralda, in the north of the country, near the border with Colombia, killing nine people. The perpetrators arrived in boats and cars and – without saying a word – started shooting indiscriminately at those present.

Ecuador continues to face a wave of violence linked to the war between drug-trafficking gangs.

Conservative President Guillermo Lasso on March 3 declared a 60-day state of emergency in three provinces, including Guayaquil, which includes Guayaquil, and Esmeralda.