The mayor of a city in southern Ecuador is murdered in an armed attack that also left his son injured

The mayor of a city in the border province of El Oro, in southern Ecuador, died Saturday night after an armed attack that also left his minor son injured, local and police authorities confirmed.

Eber Ponce, mayor of Arenillas, 570 kilometers south of the capital, Quito, was traveling in a car with his son, wife and a bodyguard when an armed individual on a motorcycle fired at the municipal vehicle, according to testimonies received, he told Police Lieutenant Christian Vivanco told the media.

The two injured, father and son, were taken to a local hospital. The mayor suffered five gunshot wounds, the police agent said.

Hours later, outside the health center, the prefect of El Oro, Clemente Bravo, confirmed the death of the authority and described his loss as “irreparable.”

His son is stable, Vivanco reported.

So far the reasons for the attack are unknown.

In a statement published on its official account in “an urgent call to the entire country to face together this crisis of insecurity that hits us harder every day.”

The head of the union regretted that work in the cities “becomes a risk for our lives and our families” and asked that the crime not go unpunished.

The event occurred in the midst of a state of exception that includes that province and that allows the deployment of the Armed Forces and the police for surveillance and security, mainly in the areas of greatest violence in the country.

He is not the first mayor of that province to suffer an attack. In 2024, the authority of the mining city Portovelo, also from El Oro, was killed, and a week before, another mayor of a city in the neighboring province of Azuay, died in another attack. In 2023, Agustín Intriago, mayor of the port city of Manta, was murdered while touring a construction site.

In recent years, Ecuador has been shaken by a wave of violencewith a rate that closed last year with more than 38.76 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, some 6,964 violent deaths and a growing number of kidnappings, assaults and other crimes, according to official figures.

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