At least 62 prisoners died in mutinies that broke out on Tuesday, February 23, in three prisons in Ecuador. “This is a confirmed data”, said Edmundo Moncayo, director of the prison service (SNAI), specifying that 33 inmates had died in the establishment of Cuenca (south), 21 in Guayaquil (southwest) and eight in Latacunga (south). He did not report deaths among the police, but “Police officers who were injured”, without specifying the number.
The prosecution attributed the disturbances to “Clashes of criminal gangs”. Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno has accused “Criminal organizations” to be behind these mutinies. Authorities “Act to regain control of the prisons”, added the head of state on Twitter.
At nightfall, the police and guards had succeeded in restoring order, a SNAI source told Agence France-Presse (AFP). The army has also been deployed around the prisons.
A crisis unit has been set up by the government, also faced with the mobilization of hundreds of indigenous people, demanding a new vote count of Yaku Perez, their presidential candidate excluded from the second round scheduled for April 11 and who denounces fraud.
State of emergency in prisons
In December, mutinies in various prisons following rivalries between criminal organizations, including drug traffickers, left eleven prisoners dead and seven injured. At the end of 2020, a state of emergency for the country’s prisons had been decreed for ninety days by President Moreno with the objective of controlling “Mafias” and reduce the violence that plagues detention centers. In total, in the year 2020, violence between inmates caused the death of 51 of them. Since the start of the year, before the unrest on Tuesday, three prisoners had already died in the violence, according to police data.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic and in order to reduce prison overcrowding, the South American country decided last year to apply alternative sentences for minor offenses. Despite this policy, the Ecuadorian penitentiary system currently has over 38,000 prisoners for 27,000 places, and only 1,500 guards.
The National Service for Integral Attention (SNAI), in charge of prison management, admitted on Tuesday a lack of security personnel, who “Complicates immediate response actions” in the event of mutinies. He felt that the riots of the day “Are a signal of resistance and rejection on the part of the detainees in the face of control actions” such as a search carried out the day before in the prison of Guayaquil.
Two guns, which were to be used to eliminate the leaders of a gang, were then seized and their enemies ordered the“Murder of prisoners from other centers”, added Edmundo Moncayo.
