Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso announced this Friday (29) that he has declared a 60-day state of emergency in three provinces where the highest levels of violence related to drug trafficking have been recorded, resulting in hundreds of crimes and massacres in prisons.
“Starting today at midnight (2 a.m. Saturday morning in Brazil), I have declared a state of emergency in the states of Guayas, Manabí and Esmeraldas (coastal),” the president said in a speech broadcast by state media.
Lasso added that he had ordered the mobilization of 4,000 police and 5,000 soldiers to these provinces as part of the state of emergency.
In the city of Durán, which borders the port of Guayaquil, the country’s commercial center and capital of the Guayas, two bodies were found in February suspended from a pedestrian bridge in the style of Mexican cartel crimes.
Hand in hand with drug trafficking, crime has soared, with 1,255 deaths in the first four months of the year, according to official figures. About 440 crimes were committed in Guayaquil and Durán.
Since February 2021, several massacres have also taken place among prisoners belonging to gangs linked to drug trafficking in Ecuador, with 350 deaths.
source: Noticias
