Ecuador prison riot leaves 14 dead, 14 wounded

According to a local police chief, 14 people have died and 14 have been injured in a prison riot in southern Ecuador as a result of gang fighting.

According to Police Chief William Calle, prisoners in the port town of Machala, south of Guayaquil, killed a guard and kidnapped officers on Monday, according to Ecuavisa.

They were “shooting, throwing bombs, and grenades from the inside,” Calle claimed.

He continued, adding that 13 of the prisoners have been recaptured so far, while some others have escaped.

Authorities regained control of the prison after about 40 minutes, according to Calle.

In recent years, there have been numerous prison riots in Ecuador, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of people. The conflicted territories are attributed to gangs fighting for territory and control, according to President Daniel Noboa’s government, which has pledged to crack down on crime.

“Don’t shoot!”

Police videotapes of heavily armed officers entering the prison play explosion-sounded videos.

“I work for the police,” I say! a cell phone user can be audible shouting. Another voice can be screaming, “Please don’t shoot!”

The rival Los Choneros and Los Lobos gangs, two of Ecuador’s biggest drug-trafficking organizations, were earlier this month labeled as “foreign terrorist organizations” by the United States. The rivals were Los Choneros and Los Lobos gangs.

Ecuador, a nation of about 17 million people, has become one of the world’s most violent thanks to organized crime.

Internal armed conflict

Colombia and Peru, the world’s top two cocaine exporters, have seen violence in Ecuador in recent years as rival gangs with ties to Colombia and Colombia fight for control.

According to government data, Ecuador’s ports now handle more than 70% of all cocaine produced worldwide.

Since February 2021, there have been roughly 500 inmates killed, often in gruesome circumstances, with their bodies dismembered and burned in gang wars inside the country’s prisons.

More than 100 prisoners died in clashes in Guayaquil in 2021, making it the largest prison massacre in Ecuador.

Decapitated and charred bodies were broadcast live on social media by prisoners.

After the release of narcotics boss Jose Adolfo Macias, aka “Fito,” in 2013, gang members held a television presenter at gunpoint live on air and held scores of prison guards hostage.

Noboa ordered the military to take control of the prisons, calling it a “state of internal armed conflict.” Eight penitentiaries, including Machala, were returned to police control last month, though.

More than a year after his escape, Fito, Los Choneros’ boss, was recaptured in June of this year.

Since 2011 for his involvement in organized crime, drug trafficking, and murder, he had been serving a 34-year sentence, but he kept putting his life on the line for the criminal underworld.

The lawlessness of Ecuador’s prisons is illustrated by videos of Fito holding wild parties, some with fireworks.