penitentiary
Ecuador: Detainees hold dozens of officers
View of Turi prison where dozens of prison guards and police officers were kidnapped by the inmates. photo
© Xavier Caivinagua/AP/dpa
There are repeated mutinies, and many prisons are under the control of crime syndicates. Officials have now been taken hostage in six prisons at the same time.
In Ecuadorian jails, inmates have taken dozens of officers hostage. 50 correctional officers and seven police officers would make a total of six Detained in prisons, the South American country’s prison administration announced on Thursday evening (local time). Security forces had previously searched a number of prisons for weapons and other prohibited items.
Prisoner mutinies and bloody clashes between hostile gangs keep happening in Ecuador’s prisons. Many prisons are controlled by crime syndicates. Often the security forces only ensure that the prisoners stay in the detention centers. Within the walls they are largely left to their own devices.
After several high-ranking gang bosses had recently been transferred to other prisons, two car bombs detonated in front of prison administration offices. Nobody was injured in the attacks. “They want to intimidate the state to prevent us from continuing to fulfill the role of the armed forces and the police in controlling these prisons,” said Security Minister Wagner Bravo on radio station FM Mundo.