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The State Attorney General’s Office confirmed the death of twelve inmates after a series of clashes at the Guayas No. 1 Detention Center. The authorities report that the fight began on the afternoon of Friday, April 14, and lasted just over four hours and a half. In addition, firearm ammunition was found and the use of 9-millimeter pistols and rifles was confirmed.
“We hope to have control of all this after the removal of the corpses, to be able to enter to count (the inmates) in the pavilions,” said the person in charge of the penitentiary, Ronald Sánchez, at a press conference where he added that, So far, there have been no prisoner escapes.
Sánchez pointed out that the clashes took place in pavilions 3, 5, 8 and 9, adding that it is presumed that the origin of the disturbances was a conflict between three criminal gangs within which is known as Penitentiary of the Litoral.
The country’s Prosecutor’s Office reacted to the situation through a post on Twitter. “The Prosecutor’s Office officially initiated a preliminary investigation to identify those responsible for the death of 12 people deprived of their liberty, inside the Litoral Penitentiary, in Guayaquil,” the institution stated on its social network.
“I am here desperate to know if my son is dead or alive”
The corresponding authorities have already entered the vicinity of the penitentiary to carry out work to identify the corpses, while dozens of families wait on the outskirts of the facilities, hoping to find out the identity of the victims and hoping that they are not one of their loved ones.
“I am here desperate to know if my son is dead or alive. My son is in pavilion 3,” said the father of one of the inmates, Jorge Quirola, amid shouts from other relatives who voiced their concern for him. whereabouts of their relatives.
“There are so many problems here, we don’t know if they are alive or dead, they don’t even send us a list of the dead, of the wounded, nothing is known,” said Alexandra Mansaba, the wife of another person deprived of his liberty who is serving his sentence in the Litoral Penitentiary.
These clashes are part of a series of violent events that have occurred in recent days in the vicinity of the Litoral Penitentiary, which add to the problems of overcrowding and corruption that various international organizations have denounced since 2020.
An unprecedented prison crisis
On Wednesday, six inmates were found hanged in pavilion 5 of the Litoral Penitentiary. Until now, it has not been revealed if they belonged to any criminal group or if they were part of the hundreds of inmates who are admitted as provisional preventive detention.
One day after the unfortunate findings, three prison guards lost their lives after being shot to death in the vicinity of the prison by alleged hitmen.
Violence in Ecuadorian prisons is a problem that has been pointed out by organizations such as the United Nations since 2020, the year in which the country experienced a rise in violent altercations within its social reintegration centers.
The difficulties of the Ecuadorian Government to face insecurity
According to reports from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in the period from December 2020 to May 2022 there were at least 390 murders inside Ecuadorian prisons. This year, the number has risen to around 450 fatalities from prison violence.
Violence inside prisons is one of the edges of the growing insecurity problem that Ecuador is going through, a situation which has caused the Government of the country to implement various policies to try to appease violence in Ecuadorian society.
The president, Guillermo Lasso, based his presidential campaign on the fight against insecurity in the country.
In early April, the president announced that it would make it easier for the civilian population to carry weapons in Ecuador, although the country’s Defense Ministry reaffirmed that arms control in Ecuador would remain strict.
The internal division in some sectors of the government and the political instability of Guillermo Lasso – the subject of a political trial promulgated by the Ecuadorian Legislative power – have not benefited the fight against insecurity, in a scenario that could worsen substantially in the near future.
With Reuters, EFE and local media
