The president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, on Monday decreed a state of emergency with a curfew until six in the morning – the first since his mandate began on November 23 – after a series of riots in at least six prisons in the country, which involved the detention of prison guards. The president also declared through an executive decree the “internal armed conflict” and pointed to “transnational organized crime groups such as terrorist organizations and belligerent non-state actors”. After the signing, the president ordered the armed forces to carry out military actions to fight against these groups and he trusts that this exceptional measure, which will be in force for sixty days, will allow firm armed intervention.
After the strong police and military presence in the streets, the reaction of the gangs did not take long and a group of members of a gang, hooded and armed with pistols, shotguns, grenades and other explosive devices, broke into the canal yesterday of TC TV in Guayaquil and took its staff hostage during a live broadcast. The assailants demanded the police in front of the cameras to withdraw. “We’re live so they know that you don’t play with the mafia,” proclaimed one of the hooded individuals. The police were deployed around the TC Televisión studios and announced the arrest of the assailants and the evacuation of the channel’s workers.
The National University of Ecuador in Guayaquil was also attacked by members of the band and there would have been kidnappings and extortions reported by direct witnesses, which at the close of this edition had not been officially confirmed. Dozens of students left the facilities running, as some videos published on social networks also show, affecting the absolute chaos that is experienced in this port city.
There had been more attacks before. In the city of Esmeraldas, a few individuals placed an explosive device near a security forces installation, although without causing injuries. Likewise, three police officers who were on duty were kidnapped in the city of Machala, in the south of the country. And in Quito another policeman was kidnapped by three gang members. Their status or whether they had been released was not known last night.
Inside the prisons so far no injuries have been reported, although during the day several videos went viral in which prison officials were seen tied up and subjected to gunpoint, knife or machete, by alleged inmates with the face covered
Some of the subdued guards asked Noboa on camera to watch over the lives of the kidnapped public officials. In the Turi prison in Cuenca, the prisoners are threatening to kill all the detained guards, about 80, according to local media, if the military enters. The institution in charge of prisons has not specified the number of prison officers retained.
The Government has not offered information on the causes that have given rise to this unusual wave of incidents, but police sources indicated that the inmates of a prison in Tena (Amazonia) retained guides in protest over the alleged transfer of prisoners. In the Guayaquil Regional prison, from where José Adolfo Macías Salazar, alias Fito, leader of Los Choneros, considered one of the most dangerous criminal gangs in the country due to their alleged links with Mexican cartels, escaped on Sunday, the armed forces regain control after the riot, the army said, but by last night authorities had not said they had found the fugitive.
Los Choneros is one of the Ecuadorian gangs that the authorities consider responsible for the increase in violence that reached another level last year with the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio. Both this criminal group and others like it are fighting for drug trafficking routes and control of the territory, even from inside the prisons, where at least 400 inmates have died since 2021, according to the authorities. Experts and authorities have recognized that gang members practically rule from inside prisons, like Macías.
The other prisons where inmates have caused riots are El Inca, in Quito; that of Riobamba, in Chimborazo; that of Ambato, in Tungurahua, and that of Machala, in El Oro.
