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In recent days, the South American nation has seen a spike in murders after a massacre of nine people took place in the fishing port of Esmeraldas and after six prisoners were found hanging in a pavilion in a Guayaquil prison. The Government blames organized crime and has announced the deployment of military forces in some of these regions.
Violence in the Ecuadorian Pacific coastal regions is causing a political earthquake in Quito. After this nation recorded the murder of nine people in the port of Esmeraldas on April 11 and six inmates were found hanged in a prison in Guayaquil the following day, Diego Ordóñez, Ecuador’s National Secretary of Public Security and State , submitted his resignation on Wednesday, April 12.
The public official, who is most responsible for state control of the country’s security, had been elected in August 2022 for this position, but, after the continuous records of increased violence in Ecuador, he submitted his resignation to President Guillermo Lasso through a letter.
And it is that the question of security and criminal violence between the different armed gangs that dominate especially the regions adjacent to the Pacific coast is one of the issues that most concern Ecuadorians.
Despite the fact that Lasso declared a state of emergency in the provinces of Esmeraldas, Guayas, Los Ríos and Santa Elena last March, the murders have continued to take place, something that severely affects the credibility of the Government.
Six prisoners hanged in an apparent dispute between gangs in a Guayaquil prison
The latest news related to crime between gangs was given in pavilion number five of the Guayas Nº1 prison, one of the most insecure in the country and protagonist on other occasions of killings between armed groups, which dispute control of the penitentiary centers, the streets and drug trafficking routes and settle their differences with mass murders.
?#URGENT | Former Secretary of Security @diegoordonezgformalized his resignation from office. “I am leaving the Government with the certainty that I have made progress in achieving the objectives defined for the creation of the Secretariat,” said Ordóñez.⬇️ pic.twitter.com/G13RA6fjzs
– NotiMundo (@notimundoec) April 12, 2023
Apparently, the pavilion where the events were recorded is dominated by a group called ‘Las Águilas’, which extorts the prisoners of the prison according to their interests.
During the day on Wednesday, dramatic scenes of relatives were seen at the gates of the prison asking for information, crying over the deaths and several ambulances accessing the prison.
In Guayaquil, Ecuador’s main commercial port, most of the more than 400 deaths of prisoners have occurred in the prison massacres registered since February 2021. The most serious was registered in September of that same year, when 119 inmates were murdered, a news that shocked the country and went around the world.
Images of the massacre in Esmeraldas come to light
On Wednesday, April 12, images of what happened in the town of Esmeraldas, a port near the Colombian border and key to controlling cocaine trafficking, also came to light, where nine people were murdered on April 11.
In these images you can see how up to 30 members of an armed gang attack the people who were in the fishing area at that time.
These criminals arrived at the scene with heavy weapons and had enough time and patience to search for their victims in their hiding places. Scenes that have also shocked the nation and have caused the Government to act by deploying the military force in the area to support the Police.
The Ecuadorian Army confirmed the deployment of up to 2,000 troops in the area, whose objective is to intervene in the most conflictive areas and arrest those responsible for the massacre.
So far, official sources have confirmed the arrest of three people. One of those arrested, known by the nickname “Coco”, is a member of the criminal gang ‘Los Tiguerones’, according to the president of Ecuador, the conservative Guillermo Lasso, who announced his capture on Wednesday.
The Ministry of the Interior also confirmed that more than 75 searches of homes have been carried out in Esmeraldas alone and that one of the vessels in which the armed group broke into the port was located.
What is known so far is that this mass shooting, in which more than 200 cartridges were used, is intended to be a show of force by ‘Los Tiguerones’ against other criminal gangs operating in the area.
The assault was allegedly carried out against workers who had hired the services of other armed movements to obtain security, something common in the region due to the fact that the State has lost presence there, which has favored this type of criminal organization.
With AFP and EFE
