The army has stepped up its presence around the Guayaquil prison in the southwestern part of Ecuador, where no incidents were reported Sunday, following the deaths of 68 detainees and the injuries of dozens of others in violent clashes between rival gangs over the past two days.
The military deployed around the prison to support police, who also sent a strong force to the Latin American country’s largest penitentiary.
Dozens of citizens remained gathered in front of the prison and the police morgue, asking for information about their detained relatives.
“We want at least to be informed, to calm the soul of every upset parent, every father, every mother,” said in front of the gate a woman who begged to be told news about her son.
Authorities say they have set up a civilian contact center to “assist and expedite” the “process of handing over corpses to relatives of people deprived of their liberty (including prisoners) who have died in violent incidents”. at Littoral Prison, or Waya 1.
On Sunday, the director of the forensic service of the police, Marco Ortiz, said that 34 bodies had been identified thanks to their fingerprints, but so far 16 could not be identified due to the “condition” in which they were found.
Among the dead is a fighter for the protection of the environment. According to non-governmental organizations, environmentalist Victor Waya was arrested in 2019 for participating in protests against rising fuel prices with 11 dead.
“Brutality”
Guayaquil High Prison was turned into a theater of extreme violence between rival gangs of inmates on Friday and Saturday.
With knives, firearms and explosives, prisoners attacked, after cutting off the power, their inmates in the second wing, killing 68 people and injuring 25 others, according to the latest official report.
The authorities stigmatized the “bestiality” and “barbarity” of the perpetrators.
On Saturday night, as new unrest was reported in another area of the prison, nearly 900 police officers, 500 of them inside, were deployed to regain “control” of the situation, according to a presidential spokesman.
The prison in the district of Guayaquil holds 8,500 inmates, in other words the surplus population reaches 60%, according to official figures. They are divided into 12 wings, where at least seven gang members, often rivals, are being held separately, including some with ties to the fearsome Mexican Sinaloa cartel and Jalisco Youth.
On September 28, 119 inmates were killed under similar conditions in the same prison. It was the worst prison massacre in Ecuadorian history and one of the worst in Latin American history. Some inmates were dismembered, beheaded or burned in those episodes.
President Guillermo Lasso then declared a “state of emergency” in Ecuador’s 65 prisons, promising to develop strong reinforcements, including army units. However, the Constitutional Court limited the duration of the measure, while forbidding the army from invading prisons.
Σύμφωνα με την αστυνομία, η νέα σφαγή συνδεόταν με τον «αγώνα για την κυριαρχία» μετά την αποφυλάκιση την περασμένη εβδομάδα του αρχηγού μιας από τις συμμορίες στη φυλακή της Γουαγιακίλ.
Officially, deaths in riots inside Ecuadorian prisons have reached 320 since the beginning of the year.
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