This Saturday, Ecuador managed to control and quell the series of prison riots that began simultaneously with the wave of criminal violence experienced this week and freed the more than 150 hostages who were being held by the prisoners, except for a prison guard who allegedly died in a shootout. .
This was announced after 10:00 p.m. local time (3:00 GMT) in a message on social networks by the president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, who confirmed the release of all the hostages who had been held in the prisons of the cities of Ecuador since the beginning of the week. Esmeraldas, Latacunga, Ambato, Cuenca, Azogues, Loja and Machala.
The riots had become the focus of this crisis of violence that began on Tuesday with a series of attacks and intimidating actions that included the assault by an armed group on a television channel, which led the Government to declare “war” against them. gangs, which it now classifies as terrorist groups.
In the prisons there were at least 178 hostages, including prison guards and administrative staff, who began to be released gradually in the days following the outbreak of the crisis until this Saturday the release of the rest was achieved, just over 150 according to the latest official figures.
For both prison officials and their families, it has been five days of anguish and despair that have resulted in at least four deaths, including a guard and three prisoners.
The deceased guard checked into the Machala prison, where a shooting took place on Friday night despite the fact that the National Service of Comprehensive Attention (SNAI) for Persons Deprived of Liberty, the State penitentiary agency, had assured hours before that the mutiny was already controlled.
In Esmeraldas the release of eleven prison guards was peaceful and took place through a negotiation where the Church mediated, while in Ambato the Armed Forces entered to reduce the prisoners and remove the thirteen prison guards held there.
Minutes later, the mayor of Cuenca, Cristian Zamora, announced the release of all the personnel held in the city jail, also known as the Turi prison, where the prisoners had climbed to the roofs of the pavilions during the early hours of the morning, from whose interior shots and detonations were heard.
During Friday night there was also a prisoner escape from the Litoral Penitentiary, the largest and most populated prison in Ecuador, located in the city of Guayaquil, from where six inmates escaped, of which two were recaptured nearby.
As a result, a prison guard was arrested on suspicion of having facilitated the escape of these inmates.
Meanwhile, according to local media, the Police and the Armed Forces carried out a search of a house owned by José Adolfo Macías Villamar, better known as ‘Fito’, the leader of the criminal gang ‘Los Choneros’ who escaped from the Regional Prison of Guayaquil at least a week ago.
Until now, it has not been revealed what the authorities found in the property located in the coastal city of Manta, where ‘Fito’ is from.
After the escape of ‘Fito’ became known, the day of terror experienced by Ecuadorians on Tuesday took place with the kidnapping and murder of police officers, explosion alerts, burning vehicles, riots in prisons and the assault by a group of armed men. a television channel in Guayaquil where they kept their workers kidnapped for several hours.
This wave of violence occurred when the intention of the Government of President Daniel Noboa to implement its plan to regain control of the prisons became known, many of them dominated by these criminal gangs that have carried out a series of massacres within the prisons since 2020. the prisons with more than 450 prisoners murdered.
To do this, Noboa seeks to isolate its leaders until two modern prisons inspired by the ‘Bukele model’ are built.
Meanwhile, the Police managed to rescue two agents this Saturday who had been kidnapped since the beginning of the week.
During the first four days of the declaration of the “internal armed conflict” 1,105 alleged criminals have been arrested, 94 of them for alleged terrorism, while five alleged “terrorists” have been killed and two police officers have been killed.
