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Quito (AFP) – A new fight left at least 13 prisoners dead on Monday in an Ecuadorian prison, the same one in which 44 inmates died in another brawl in May, reported the state agency in charge of prisons.
“Unfortunately, Center staff currently reports 13 PPL (persons deprived of liberty) deceased and 2 injured,” said the SNAI (National Service for Comprehensive Care for Adults) on Twitter.
The agency added that with the support of police and military “control is regained” of the prison in the town of Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, 80 km west of Quito.
In May, a riot broke out in that same prison, which left at least 44 prisoners dead, including two Venezuelans, and 11 wounded, including a policeman. During the May incident, 220 inmates escaped. Almost all were recaptured.
Earlier, the SNAI reported that “a fight was registered inside the prison center” of Santo Domingo, for which it immediately requested the support of the Police, the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Health.
Later, the agency pointed out that “the institutions in charge of internal and external security continue to guard the Center.”
The Prosecutor’s Office reported in turn that “it proceeds with the removal of corpses and evidence in the Center for the Deprivation of Liberty of #SantoDomingoDeLosTsáchilas, where 13 deaths and 2 injuries have been registered so far.”
Massacres and seizures
Gangs with ties to international drug cartels are waging a war for power inside and outside of Ecuador’s prisons.
Since February 2021 there have been almost a dozen prison massacres in the country with some 400 dead inmates, some of which have become among the worst in Latin America.
Ecuadorian prisons, with capacity for some 30,000 people, currently have an overpopulation of almost 9% compared to 30% two years ago.
Ecuador is facing a wave of violence related to drug trafficking that leaves bloody images with decapitated bodies hanging from bridges in the style of the Mexican cartels.
Last year the nation, with 17.7 million inhabitants, closed with a rate of 14 murders per 100,000 people, almost double that of 2020.
Ecuador remained for many years relatively safe from the violence of its neighbors Colombia and Peru, the world’s two largest producers of cocaine. In 2021, he seized a record 210 tons of drugs, mainly cocaine.
Ecuador is the third country in the world that has seized the most drugs between 2021 and so far in 2022, “adding more than 300 tons,” Interior Minister Patricio Carrillo said last week.
The most recent report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (Unodc), published in June, indicates that Ecuador in 2020 seized 6.5% of the cocaine seized in the world, ranking behind Colombia (41%). , with almost 600 tons) and the United States (11%), and above Brazil (6.4%) and Belgium (4.9%).
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