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Guayaquil (Ecuador) (AFP) – Special Police Forces transferred the leaders of the gangs that have unleashed terror in Guayaquil, within the framework of the “open war” that the Ecuadorian Government declared against drug trafficking.
This Friday, uniformed men with shields and helmets stationed themselves on the roofs of the Guayas 1 prison, in the port of 2.8 million inhabitants where the state of emergency and the nightly curfew are in force.
Shortly after noon, three “detonations” were heard, causing panic among relatives of prisoners who ran screaming outside the prison center, according to journalists from the AFP news agency.
“We don’t know anything, only that there are dead and wounded,” Myriam said, withholding her last name. Her husband is serving a 20-year sentence for homicide in pavilion 2 dominated by the gang led by alias “Ben 10”, in which there were transfers.
“I am concerned about how he is or where he is (…) he is in danger because he is from a criminal gang and where they are transferring him is from another gang,” added the woman.
Inside the jail, the movement was intense. The SNAI, the state agency in charge of prisons, shared images of inmates in shorts with their hands behind their heads being led away by guards with their faces covered.
The “internal rotation” of prisoners between pavilions was carried out without resistance, the SNAI said in a tweet.
without bending
The Government went on the offensive after twenty bullet and explosive attacks this week against command posts, gas stations and a sanatorium attributed to the organizations that took over several prisons and dispute the income from drug trafficking and extortion.
The gangs acted in retaliation for the transfer until Thursday to other prisons of some 1,400 inmates of Guayas 1, the most populated of Ecuador’s prisons.
This is a “declaration of open war,” President Guillermo Lasso said this week.
Since Tuesday, five policemen and one civilian have been killed. Another 15 soldiers, including soldiers, have been injured in clashes with rioting inmates. The battle in Guayaquil is being waged at the same time in prisons and streets taken over by drug traffickers.
Lasso decreed a state of emergency and mobilized troops to deal with the onslaught of organized crime. “This government does not bow down to narco-terrorists: in this country they are not going to impose their will,” he warned on social networks.
The president ordered the change of pavilion or prison of the gang leaders. Leaders of the “Chone Killer” such as “Ben 10” were transferred to La Roca, a maximum security prison with capacity for 160 inmates located in the same complex where Guayas 1 is located, as announced by the president on Twitter along with the image of two men in underpants, with their backs turned and their hands tied.
“More than 1,000 people deprived of liberty are going to be transferred from the internal pavilions of the penitentiary,” said Guillermo Rodríguez, director of the SNAI, in a message shared on Friday to the media from the outskirts of Guayas 1 where he arrived with a helmet. and bulletproof vest.
In emergency
On Thursday, the Public Force entered the prison and was received with bullets and explosives. Dozens of semi-naked inmates were placed face down on the ground with their hands on their chests, according to images released by Lasso in a tweet.
This Friday the Government extended the state of emergency decreed on Tuesday to a third province to face the onslaught of drug traffickers. Guayas, Esmeraldas and now Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas (west) were left under a state of exception that authorizes the government to mobilize the military and restrict rights for 45 days.
Between the three provinces they add up to about six million of the 18 million inhabitants that Ecuador has, which for years was on the margin of drug violence despite bordering Colombia, the world’s largest supplier of cocaine that reaches the United States and Europe.
This year, 160 tons of drugs have been seized compared to the record of 210 tons in 2021.
Guayaquil is the point most affected by the action of drug trafficking. So far this year, at least 1,200 homicides have been reported, 60% more than the same period in 2021, according to official data.
