Six police officers were injured in recent prison riots in Ecuador on Thursday, officials said, as the country is gripped by violence attributed to organized crime groups waging a deadly drug war.
The six were injured while trying to quell a riot at the notorious Guayas 1 prison in the southwestern port city of Guayaquil, police said on Twitter.
A source from the SNAI prisons agency, who asked not to be named, told AFP that inmates confronted the police officers with guns and explosives.
Ecuador — once a relatively peaceful neighbor of major cocaine producers Colombia and Peru — has seen a spate of violent crime that authorities blame on turf wars between gangs linked to Mexican cartels.
Civilians are increasingly involved in the bloodshed that has claimed the lives of more than 60 police officers since last year.
Hundreds of inmates have died in Ecuador’s overcrowded prisons since February last year – many have been beheaded or burned to death, while gang warfare is also being waged behind bars – particularly in Guayas 1.
Widespread corruption among the guards allows inmates to get their hands on guns and explosives, among other things.
President Guillermo Lasso declared a state of emergency and night-time curfews in the western provinces of Guayas, of which Guayaquil is the capital, and Esmeraldas, following Tuesday’s attacks that killed five police officers and a civilian.
Groups armed with weapons including car bombs hit more than 18 targets in the two provinces, including police and gas installations, a clinic – where a civilian was seriously wounded – and a bus station.
Detainees at a facility in Esmeraldas also took eight guards hostage on Tuesday to protest the detainees’ transfer, but later freed them. In the same city, two headless bodies were found hanging from a pedestrian bridge on Monday.
Tuesday’s attacks are said to have been in response to a mass transfer of inmates from Guayas 1 prison, which is largely gang-controlled.
Two inmates were killed and six injured in clashes at the prison on Wednesday.
In recent years, Ecuador has developed from a transit route for drugs into an important distribution center.
The United States and Europe are the main destinations for drugs from Latin America.
The homicide rate in Ecuador nearly doubled to 14 per 100,000 people in 2021, reaching 18 per 100,000 between January and October this year, according to official figures.
In 2021, law enforcement seized a record 210 tons of drugs, mostly cocaine. So far this year’s seizures total 160 tons.
