Mutinies in penitentiary establishments that turn into massacres are recurrent in Latin America. And Ecuador’s prison crisis is not new. But this small country of 17 million inhabitants had never known such an outburst of violence: 79 detainees were killed on Tuesday, February 23. From an official source, the violence broke out at dawn “Almost simultaneously” in three overcrowded prisons – they are all overcrowded in this part of the world.
According to General Edmundo Moncayo, director of the prison service (SNAI), these three prisons accommodate 70% of the country’s prison population. The authorities attribute the violence to rivalries between criminal gangs linked to drug trafficking. President Lenin Moreno, who has not appeared in public, denounced, on his Twitter account, “Simultaneous violent actions of criminal organizations”, before announcing that he had “Ordered the Ministry of Defense to resume control of weapons and explosives around the penitentiary centers.”
Organizaciones criminales carry out acciones de violencia simultáneas en varios centros penitenciarios del país. The… https://t.co/ubEaR0Cg7w
The clashes lasted for several hours. Images of extreme violence circulated on WhatsApp. We see mutilated and decapitated bodies lying in pools of blood. The televisions showed the women, mothers, wives or sisters of detainees, consumed with worry in front of the prisons, awaiting news. The Ombudsman – the institution responsible for ensuring respect for human rights – denounced “An unprecedented massacre”.
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At the end of the day, the official report showed 34 prisoners killed, then increased to 37, in the regional prison of the port of Guayaquil, on the Pacific coast, 33 corrected later to 34 in that of Turi, further south, and 8 in Latacunga, capital of the Andean province of Cotopaxi. This prison had already been the scene, in December 2020, of a mutiny which resulted in the death of 5 people. In August, 11 detainees were killed in Guayaquil.
The number of injured among the detainees was not specified on Monday. The official record indicates that there have been “Injured police officers”, without further details. No civil servant or law enforcement agent was reportedly killed.
Some 800 police officers have been deployed to regain control of the prisons. Special intervention forces entered the insurgent establishments, while the army secured the surroundings. At nightfall, the SNAI claimed that the situation was under control.
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