On Monday, the Ecuadorian Security Commission approved the declaration of a state of emergency for a period of 60 days and Night curfew In the counties of Manabi and Los Rios and in the municipality of Duran, one day after the mayor of Manta, Augustine Intriagokilling.
The new state of emergency was declared by Ecuador’s conservative President Guillermo Lasso, during a Security Committee meeting held in Duran, a municipality that is part of the Guayaquil Metropolitan Region and which records one of the highest rates of violence and insecurity in the country.
This new state of emergency, issued due to increased crime and violence rates, includes Manabi Province, where Manta is located, and neighboring Los Rios Province, which also borders Guayas Province, where Guayaquil and Duran are located.
In all three jurisdictions, the curfew will be in effect from 10:00 pm to 5:00 am local time.
Exceptions have been repeated since the start of Lasso’s presidential term in May 2021 in an effort to quell the escalation of violence from Ecuador’s insecurity crisis.
The assassination of Intriago, one of Ecuador’s most popular mayors, has shocked the Andean nation and put an extraordinary general election campaign in mourning, with many candidates suspending their activities as a sign of mourning.
The 38-year-old Intriago, who was re-elected last February, was He was assassinated on Sunday while on a construction tour.
So far, there is one arrested for the crime, a Venezuelan national, who was transferred to hospital after being injured in the attack, while the police also managed to recover four mobile phones under analysis, as well as the remains of the shots fired at the late mayor.
The Intriago case adds to the attack last May against the mayor of Duran, Luis Chunillo, who on Monday participated in the security committee, and to the murders that have occurred in Ecuador in recent months, including the case of Rep. Candidate Ryder Sanchez, a few days ago in the coastal province of Esmeralda.
In this sense, the Ecuadorian Security Committee will meet again this Tuesday in Guayaquil with representatives of the Federation of Municipalities of Ecuador (AME), the Federation of Autonomous Regional Governments of Ecuador (Congope) and the National Council of Parochial Rural Governments of Ecuador (Conagopare).
AME plans to announce on Tuesday itself the state of violence and threats some local authorities in the country are going through from delinquency and organized crime.
Ecuador closed the year 2022 with the highest rate of violent deaths in its history, recording 25.32 per 100,000 inhabitants, due to street crime and organized crime, largely linked to drug trafficking, which has turned Ecuadorian ports into great staging platforms for sending cocaine to Europe and North America.
prison strikes
almost One hundred prison guards are being held In five prisons that are part of 13 prisons where inmates are on hunger strike, according to the Comprehensive National Service for Persons Deprived of Liberty (SNAI), which is responsible for the prison system in the Andean country.
The largest number of agents held is in the Torre prison, near the southern Andean city of Cuenca, with 40, followed by the Lataconga (Cotopaxi) prisons with 25; from Machala (Al-Uru) with 14; from Archidona (Naboo) by 12; and from the Azogues (Cañar), with 5.
According to SNAI, the prisoners on hunger strike are currently from prisons in the provinces of Imbabura, Napo, Chimborazo (2), Tungurahua, Azuay, Canar (2), El Oro, Loja, Guayas, Cotopaxi and Pichincha.
The institute has not yet determined the number of prisoners on hunger strike at the national level, nor the reasons for this forceful measure.
In the previous months, other groups of prisoners linked to organized crime had staged a similar protest to demand their transfer to other prisons.
The hunger strike began on Sunday, coinciding with a series of clashes between criminal groups in the Litoral prison, located in the city of Guayaquil, officially called the Guayas Deprivation of Liberty Center No. 1, which left a balance between Six dead and 11 wounded.
Ecuador’s prisons have been the scene of a series of massacres since 2020 in which more than 450 prisoners were killed, as a result of clashes between rival gangs that dispute internal control of detention centers.
Added to this are prison conditions, with overcrowding that in some cases may reach 50% of its capacity.
Violence is also rampant in the streets, as organized crime groups fight for control of drug trafficking routes, especially in the coastal region, where the ports that have made Ecuador one of the main departure points for cocaine reaching North America and Europe are located.
