Relatives of the inmates are waiting for news after the bloody riot that broke out in the Santo Domingo jail. Photo: AFP
A prison riot left central Ecuador at least 43 dead prisonersreported Monday by the Prosecutor’s Office, in a new act of prison violence in the country plagued by the uncontrollable rise of drug trafficking and crime.
“So far there have been 43 dead inmates,” the Prosecutor’s Office said on Twitter, noting that the information was “in development.” Interior Minister Patricio Carrillo said at a press conference that the death toll was 41.
The riot took place in the Santo Domingo jail (about 80 km from Quito). At first – when only two deaths were discussed – pictures of the wounded with bruised faces appeared, they were transferred to vans and ambulances to receive medical attention, and relatives of the prisoners crowded around. around the prison, the AFP found.
One of the injured was being helped out of jail. The prosecution confirmed more than 40 deaths. Photo: AFP
The minister added that “approximately 40 people escaped,” who were again caught “immediately” on the outer prison fences by members of the Armed Forces and Police.
In Ecuadorian prisons, over 350 prisoners in February 2021 amid the unbridled violence the government attributed to the confrontation of criminal gangs associated with drug pushing.
Desperate, relatives await news outside the prison. Photo: AFP
Despite many measures — including the allocation of the budget, the transfer of the most dangerous prisoners to a single center and the creation of a pacification commission — President Guillermo Lasso’s government has not prevented prison massacres, one of the worst. in Latin America.
Along with the brutal massacres in prisons, Ecuador faces an increase in street violence and drug trafficking, which the government is trying to control through a state of emergency in the provinces of Guayas, Manabí and Esmeraldas, the most affected of drug trafficking. .
At least 43 people have been killed in a violent unrest in Ecuador. Photo: AFP
So far, the country has seized 82 tons of drugs and by 2021 it has achieved a record 210 tons.
In the first four months of the year, 1,255 violent deaths were reported in the country — including beheadings and beheadings—, half of those recorded throughout 2021.
This latest riot began early Monday morning in the Bellavista jail, in the province of Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas (Colorados), when gangs of “Los Lobos” and one of their factions called “R7” clashed. , according to the Minister. .
A month before this new riot, a confrontation between prisoners at the El Turi penitentiary center, in the Andean city of Cuenca (south), left 20 dead, some severed.
The body governing the administration of prisons, SNAI, has indicated that it has activated “security protocols” to contain “structural changes” in the prison.
According to Carrillo, the police entered the medium and minimum security pavilion and took “operational actions” to control the maximum.
Authorities plan to conduct a weapons search in the jail and transfer the gang leaders to a prison in the coastal province of Guayas (southwest), where the worst prison massacre has been reported since February last year.
Overcrowding is another problem in Ecuadorian prisons: of the country’s 65 prisons, with a capacity for about 30,000 people, there are about 35,000 inmates, according to authorities.
With information from the AFP
DD
Source: Clarin
