Riots in two prisons in Ecuador: 27 dead – News

At least 27 prisoners have died in the violent riots that took place this week in two Ecuadorian prisons, according to the latest assessment provided by the authorities.

Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso declared a state of emergency in the country’s prison system and changed the director of the Social Reintegration Service (SNAI) in response to Wednesday’s riots in Cotopaxi, where 19 people died, and in Guayas, where eight died.

A police officer was raped in one of the riots, according to Cotopaxi governor Oswaldo Coronel.

The alleged rapist was later found dead, hanged, according to statements gathered by the online version of the magazine The week and reproduced by the press agency Europe Press.

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About 50 people were injured in what Lasso described as the action of criminal gangs with the ultimate goal of organizing a mass escape, as happened at Cotopaxi.

A total of 86 escaped prisoners have already been recaptured.

Photo: Police of Ecuador

“The strong intervention of the National Police, with the firm support of the Armed Forces, put a definitive end to the incidents. They are wrong if they believe that this government will act with the same lukewarmness as the previous ones ”, declared the president, who assured that“ the mafias will be defeated ”, since these riots are framed in clashes between gangs.

Up to 120 people have died in the country’s seven prisons so far this year, with one of the biggest massacres on February 23 in the prisons of Libertad Zonal 8 and Sierra Centro Norte, in Cotopaxi, and one in Turi, in Cuenca, which resulted in 80 deaths, according to the Ecuadorian newspaper Universe.