First modification:
After the day of violence that took place on Tuesday in Guayaquil and Esmeraldas, the Ecuadorian government decreed a new state of emergency and a curfew in these provinces. President Guillermo Lasso suspended the trip he had scheduled to the United States to move to Guayaquil.
To reduce the rates of violence, a curfew has been decreed from 9:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. in the two provinces of Guayas and Esmeraldas, subject to a state of emergency after the multiple attacks of this 1 of November.
The 18 attacks on Tuesday and the murder of five police officers in Guayaquil and Esmeraldas have been taken by the authorities as a declaration of war by the gangs and drug cartels that plunge Ecuador into apparently uncontrollable violence.
After giving up his vacation in Florida, President Guillermo Lasso has moved to the city of Guayaquil with the Police and Armed Forces staff.
“Open Declaration of War”
The president affirmed that drug traffickers seek to cause terror among the population after attacking gas stations and a health center in the poor area of Bastión Popular in Guayaquil. “They are a declaration of open war against the rule of law, the government and against all of you, the citizens. We do not allow it,” he said.
In their first raids, the Police and the Armed Forces have arrested 28 people and seized weapons, ammunition, rifles, drugs, vehicles and dynamite. Controls on the country’s main highways have led to the arrest of the two drivers of a truck arriving from Peru with more than 16,000 sticks of dynamite.
The State Attorney General’s Office, whose staff works virtually in three of the most violent cities in the country, has decided to prosecute seven detainees accused of having murdered two police officers in Guayaquil for “alleged terrorism”.
