Ecuador declares state of emergency for prisons after riot that left more than 100 dead

Ecuador declared the prison system a state of emergency on Wednesday, in crisis due to overcrowding and drug gang violence, after a riot that left more than 100 dead and 52 injured.

Tuesday’s revolt in one of the prisons in the port of Guayaquil (southwest) became the bloodiest of the year in the country, where around 120 deceased detainees were already registered.

In February, there were simultaneous riots in four prisons in three Ecuadorian cities, in which 79 inmates died, including several beheaded.

“I have just declared a state of emergency in the entire prison system at the national level,” the president said on Twitter. Guillermo Lasso, adding that he will head a security committee in Guayaquil to control “the emergency, guaranteeing the human rights of all those involved”.

The state of emergency empowers the Executive to suspend civil rights and the use of public force to restore normalcy.

The Lasso government, which took office last May, had already declared the prison system “emergency” in order to mobilize resources without red tape.

In the latest official report, the government body in charge of prisons (SNAI) indicated that “more than 100 #PPL (people deprived of liberty) have died and 52 injured”.

He had previously reported 30 dead and 52 injured.

The entity added on Twitter that the police and prosecution “continue to collect information” in the prison, which remains cordoned off by the army, supported by a tank.

Reinforced security

The presence of soldiers outside Guayas 1 prison, which is part of a large penitentiary complex in Guayaquil, was reinforced following the clash with guns.

Mounted policemen also guarded the exteriors, where dozens of people searched for information on the status of their imprisoned relatives.

“We want information because we don’t know anything about our families, our children, because I have my son here, I don’t know anything about my son,” said a woman who did not reveal his identity.

Because of prison crisis, also fueled by the insufficiency of guards, And this led the authorities to declare the system an emergency in 2019, the military have been supporting the external control of prisons for months.

The prosecution stressed that among the wounded were two policemen and that “the struggle for power within the Litoral penitentiary and the authorities’ intention to transfer the leaders of criminal organizations to other prisons in the country would have been the triggers of clashes. “, which left several detainees beheaded.

With the intervention of the police, “we prevented more violent deaths,” said General Fausto Buenaño, police commander in Guayaquil.

The mutineers, who even had a rifle in their possession, “attacked us with long guns, short guns,” he said.

Condena of the IACHR

Following Tuesday’s bloody prison riot, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) once again condemned violence in Ecuadorian prisons.

“In 2021 there would be more than 200 deaths, as a result of violence in prisons. It is recalled that States have a legal obligation to adopt measures which guarantee the rights to life, personal integrity and the safety of those detained, ”he added. said on Twitter. .

The revolt exacerbates the prison crisis in Ecuador caused by the clashes for power between criminal gangs linked to the Mexican cartels of Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generación.

In Ecuador, with 17.7 million inhabitants, violence has become permanent in its 65 prisons, where there are 39,000 people out of a capacity of 30,000.

“There has been a prison crisis since 2010, with an average of 25 homicides per year, but which accelerates considerably from 2017,” Fernando Carrión, expert in security and drug trafficking, told AFP.

According to the Ombudsman’s office, in 2020 there were 103 murders in penitentiaries across the country, in which corruption facilitates the entry of arms and ammunition.

Drug trafficking and crime

A third of the detainees “come from explicit criminal organizations linked to international drug trafficking,” said Carrión, professor at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (Flacso) in Quito.

According to police reports, two of the gangs that support the Mexican cartels have around 20,000 members.

Ecuador seized some 116 tons of drugs between January and August 2021, mainly cocaine, against the record 128 tonnes for the whole of 2020.

Located between Colombia and Peru, the world’s main producers of cocaine, the country serves as a transit point for shipping drugs to the United States and Europe.

Source: AFP

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