A few weeks after the assassination of presidential candidate Villavicencio in Ecuador, organized crime is once again showing its power. And that extends to the prisons. Criminal gangs are apparently struggling for supremacy behind bars.
In several prisons in Ecuador, prisoners have taken prison guards and police officers hostage. “We are concerned about the safety of our officials,” said Ecuadorian Interior Minister Juan Zapata on Thursday (local time) at a press conference in the capital, Quito.
Zapata initially said all 57 hostages – 50 prison guards and seven police officers – were being held in a prison in the southern Ecuadorian city of Cuenca. The correctional authority SNAI later announced that six different correctional facilities were affected.
In a video circulated on social media from one of the prisons in the city of Cuenca, a police officer, identified as Lieutenant Alonso Quintana, asked the authorities “not to take decisions that violate the rights of people who are deprived of their freedom are deprived”. The man was surrounded by other hostages. Interior Minister Zapata described the video as authentic.
bombings in the capital
There were four car bomb attacks on Wednesday and Thursday. In the capital, Quito, an explosive device detonated near an office building that used to house the Ecuadorian prison administration. A second explosion in Quito occurred in front of the agency’s current headquarters.
According to the police and the Interior Ministry, there were no injuries in the explosions or in connection with the hostage-taking. The authorities had recently moved more inmates to settle disputes within the prisons between gang members. The recent acts of violence are reactions of criminal groups to these and other measures, explained SNAI.
The hostage-taking came a day after hundreds of security forces raided one of the country’s largest prisons in the Andean city of Latacunga in southern Ecuador for weapons, ammunition and explosives in a mass operation.
Lost control of large prisons
The state had lost control of large prisons in recent years. Violent unrest had broken out in some places, killing dozens of people. Ecuadorian authorities attribute the escalation in violence over the past three years to a power vacuum created by the 2020 assassination of Jorge Zambrano, a leader of the Los Choneros gang.
Three weeks ago, the Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was murdered after a campaign appearance in Quito. Known for his tough stance against organized crime, he had accused “Los Choneros” and their imprisoned current leader, Adolfo Macías aka “Fito”, of threatening him and his campaign team.
60 days state of emergency imposed
In the face of gang fighting between organizations linked to drug cartels in Mexico and Colombia, President Guillermo Lasso declared a 60-day state of emergency for the country’s detention centers at the end of July, so that soldiers can also be deployed there to monitor them.
Violent clashes between gangs are common in Ecuador’s prisons. Around 430 prisoners have died in Ecuadorian prisons since 2021.