Ecuador: Protester killed by rubber bullets and pellets during clashes in Quito

The protests in Ecuador Against the high cost of living and the economic policies of the government of President Guillermo Lasso, this Thursday they added their third fatality, identified as Henry Quezada Espinoza, according to human rights organizations and the indigenous movement, the main promoter of this mobilization.

The deceased was identified by the Alliance of Organizations for Human Rights of Ecuador as Henry Quezada Espinoza39, a man who perished “due to penetrating trauma to the thorax and abdomen by pellets”:

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In photos spread on social networks, the body of the man can be seen inert on the ground and with a naked torso, the same one that presents impacts apparently from a rubber bullet and a cluster of pelletsas well as a bulging wound on the forehead.

According to human rights organizations and the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie), Quezada’s death occurred during the strong clashes that took place this Thursday between protesters and police in the center of Quitoin the eleventh consecutive day of protests.

Demonstrators take cover behind makeshift shields during an anti-government protest amid a standoff between the government of President Guillermo Lasso and Ecuador’s National Assembly, in Quito. (REUTERS / Adriano Machado /)

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In these events, Police have denounced the use of firearms by protesterswhen presenting on social networks a video supposedly of the clashes that took place this Thursday, in which a group of people can be seen protecting another while firing a shotgun.

“Violent protesters use and attack the Police with firearms in the social protest led by the indigenous movement. We reiterate that the Police do not use lethal weapons to control public order,” said this security force on social networks.

The El Arbolito park once again became the setting for a pitched battle, as was the case in October 2019, when another wave of protests also led by Conaie against the elimination of fuel subsidies resulted at the national level with a dozen deaths and some 1,500 injuries.

Police disperse protesters trying to reach the headquarters of the National Assembly of Ecuador in Quito. (EFE/ José Jácome).

DISSOLVED MANIFESTATION

The altercations were concentrated there after The Police used tear gas to break up a massive demonstration that reached the exterior of the National Assembly (Parliament) and in which the president of the Conaie, Leonidas Isa.

In that march, the indigenous leader announced his position of continuing without accepting the dialogue called by various social and religious organizations, even after the government granted him one of his conditions to sit down to negotiate, which was to have access to House of Culture to establish a popular assembly.

The protests that began on Monday, June 13, demand that fuel prices be reduced and frozen, that the prices of essential products be controlled, that State companies not be privatized, and that oil and mining concessions in the region not be expanded. Amazon, among other points.

The death recorded this Thursday is the third in four days, after a young protester fell down the side of a mountain on Monday when a police contingent allegedly fired tear gas at a group of indigenous people to prevent them from entering Quito.

On Tuesday, the second fatality was recorded during the violent events that occurred in Puyo, capital of the Amazonian province of Pastaza, where a young man lost his life due to the impact on the head of a tear gas canister fired “at close range”; according to the indigenous people, and for manipulating explosives, according to the Police.

Source: Elcomercio