At least 20 people were killed in a clash in a prison in Ecuador on Sunday (4), according to the government, in another episode of the prison crisis in the country where 316 inmates were killed last year alone.
The conflict took place in the El Turi prison, in the city of Cuenca, in the south of the country, 470 kilometers from the capital, Quito. Clashes began around 1:30 am (3:30 am GMT) in the maximum security section, with rival groups vying for control of the pavilions, the government says. At noon it was still possible to see prisoners and police on the prison roofs.
Interior Minister Patricio Carrillo said five bodies were mutilated in the clash, six people were found hanged and one victim had apparent signs of poisoning. In addition to the dead, five people were seriously injured, he said.
About 1,000 members of the security forces have been mobilized to regain control of the prison, he said, and prisoners will now be distributed among different blocks within the prison to try to avoid revenge and further disputes between gang members.
“The fights are over, but there are armed detainees inside,” Carrillo said. According to him, security forces entered the blocks to confiscate weapons and clean up the prison.
The minister denied that the fight had occurred due to overcrowding. In Ecuador’s 65 prisons, with a capacity for around 30,000 people, there are around 39,000 prisoners (30% overcrowded), of whom 15,000 have yet to be tried.
In El Turi, with a capacity for 2,500 prisoners, there are now 1,600 inmates. The confrontation took place, he says, because “there is an organization that wants to have absolute power” and “there are some cells that have rebelled”.
President Guillermo Lasso, a conservative who took control of the country in May last year, has pledged to reduce violence in prisons through a process of gang pacification, early release of prisoners and political and social reforms.
Neighboring the largest cocaine producer in the world, Colombia, Ecuador has become a strategic port for the movement of the drug, which attracts international criminal organizations, especially Colombian and Mexican, who associate with local groups in search of privileged routes for exporting cocaine. drugs to other countries.
In just one riot in October last year, in Guayaquil, 118 prisoners were killed, some of them beheaded, in executions that were filmed and spread through social networks. It was not only the most violent rebellion in Ecuador, but also one of the cruelest on the continent, surpassing even the Carandiru massacre in 1992, when 111 prisoners were murdered in São Paulo.
The prison crisis also leads to unusual episodes, such as when a drone dropped explosives at the Guayaquil prison complex. At the time, Snai, the body responsible for managing prisons, wrote on Twitter: “It is serious, we are in the midst of a war between INTERNATIONAL CARTELS”, in capital letters, saying that the attack was aimed at gang leaders.
