The 27-year-old mayor of the Ecuadorian city of San Vicente, which has been rocked by gang violence, was murdered along with an associate, police said Sunday.

Brigitte Garcia became the youngest mayor of the country last year. Among other things, he had campaigned to improve access to drinking water for the roughly 17,000 residents of San Vicente, about 100 kilometers east of Guayaquil.

The 27-year-old mayor and her representative, Hairo Lor, were found dead in a car in a coastal location on Saturday night.

“I am devastated,” former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa wrote in a post on Platform X about the murder of Brigitte Garcia, who came from within his movement. Luisa Gonzalez, who was a candidate of the Revolutionary Citizens (RC) movement in last year’s presidential election, commented that “no one is safe in Ecuador.”

Eleven days before the first round of elections in August, presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio – who had promised to fight corruption – was shot dead after a campaign rally in Quito. The government blamed organized crime for his murder.

In January, President Daniel Noboa declared a state of emergency in Ecuador following bloody prison riots and the escape of the leader of one of the country’s most powerful gangs. At the same time, he mobilized the army to deal with 22 gangs that are now classified as “terrorist organizations”.