Attack on a shop in a northern suburb of his capital Equatorialof Quito, which often turns into a theater of gang action, claimed the lives of five people, while a woman was injured, the police announced yesterday Saturday.

The attack was committed on the night of Friday to Saturday, inside a hair salon in the run-down suburb of Pissouli.

“Armed men entered the store and opened fire, killing five people and injuring a woman,” according to the police, who are investigating.

Two of the victims were known to the judiciary — they had criminal records for theft, kidnapping, extortion, gun possession and murder, the same source said.

Since August 31, there have been four attacks on prison service officers or employees. Toll: four dead.

Clashes between drug-trafficking gangs linked to international cartels, outside and inside prisons, are now all too common in the Andean state, which has turned from an oasis of calm into one of the most dangerous countries in the world.

Ecuador of 17 million inhabitants registered a record 47 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023, while the index stood at 6/100,000 in 2018.

While clashes between rival gang members in prisons have killed over 460 inmates since 2021.

Since January, the government of President Daniel Noboa has put the army on the streets to tackle drug gangs.

From January to September, 4,236 homicides were committed, compared to 5,112 in the corresponding period of 2023, according to Ecuador’s interior ministry.

In the country, located between Colombia and Peru, the two countries with the largest cocaine production on the planet, 168 tons of drugs were seized in the first seven months of this year.