At least 43 prisoners died in clashes between rival gangs on Monday at a prison in Ecuador, from which a hundred other prisoners escaped after the violence.
Forty -three detainees have died so far.the Attorney General’s office announced on its Twitter account, while Interior Minister Patricio Carrillo, reported 41 deaths at a press conference.
Thirteen people were hospitalized, some of them seriously injured; it is possible that the number [de décès] increasedcommented Mr. Carrillo.
The violence took place in the Bellavista prison, in the province of Santo Domingo de los Tsachilas, about 80 km west of Quito.
At the scene, the injured with facial wounds were treated by paramedics, and relatives of the detainees crowded around the penitentiary center to try to get information, AFP said.
According to the Ecuadorian police chief, the attackers acted with extreme crueltywhile the violence was followed by a massive escape.
While authorities have not provided figures on the total number of escapees, 112 of them may be caught againbut 108 still missing Monday afternoon, according to the chief of police, General Fausto Salinas. 250 police, 200 soldiers and additional reinforcements are on the wayhe detailed.
With a capacity of 1,200 places, the Bellavista jail currently accepts 1,700 inmates.
gang war
This is the unfortunate result of gang violence, mourned for his part on Twitter President Guillermo Lasso, on tour in Israel. He addressed her sincere condolences to the families dead people.
Clashes between members of two rival gangs, the Wolves and the R7exploded around 3 a.m., the minister said, triggering an outbreak of security protocols to contain chaos in jail. Most, if not nearly 100%, of the victims were killed with knives, not gunsat their mutilated corpses [ont été] left.
They were executed in common rooms, in cellsthen there was a mass escape attempt in the use of firearms, Mr. Carrillo admitted.
Those allowed to move between different blocks inside the prison are probably behind this massacre.he said, determined a scenario similar to that on April 28 at the El Turi jail, where members of the “Wolves” were already facing “R7”.
About 20 prisoners died there, most of them cut with knives.
Clashes, often extremely violent, have been repeated in Ecuadorian prisons, where nearly 350 inmates have died since February 2021.
According to the government, rival gangs of drug traffickers, infiltrated or controlled by Mexican cartels, are waging an all -out war for control of overcrowded prisons, a war that until now authorities have had no power to stop. .
According to Daniel Ponton, Dean of the School of Security and Defense at the Institute for Advanced National Studies (IAEN), the relocation policy of the most dangerous detainees, released from large prisons, would be the source of the outbreak of violence in penitentiary establishments until then. quite quietwhich can result in worried generalization of the problem.
The escape of many prisoners also indicates that it was from a low security cageetc very weak.
In 2021, Ecuador seized a record 210 tons of drugs, mostly cocaine. So far in 2022, seizures have reached approximately 70 tons.
Bordering Colombia and Peru, the world’s largest producer of cocaine, Ecuador serves as a port of departure for illicit shipments, mainly to the United States and Europe.
Source: Radio-Canada
