Ecuador decrees a state of exception for prisons after clashes with more than 100 deaths

Ecuador declared on Wednesday a state of exception for the prison system, in crisis due to overcrowding and violence between drug gangs, after a riot that leaves more than 100 prisoners dead and 52 wounded.

Tuesday’s revolt in one of the prisons in the port of Guayaquil (southwest) became the bloodiest of the year in the country, where about 120 deceased prisoners 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 decreed the State of Exception in the entire prison system at the national level”, the president indicated 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 exception empowers the Executive to suspend civil rights and the use of public force to restore normality.

The government of Lasso, who took office last May, had already declared the prison apparatus an “emergency” in order to mobilize resources without bureaucratic procedures.

In the most recent official balance, the government body in charge of prisons (SNAI) indicated that “more than 100 #PPL (persons deprived of liberty) have died and 52 were injured.”

He had previously reported 30 dead and 52 injured.

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

“I don’t know anything about my son”

The presence of soldiers outside the prison Guayas 1, which is part of a large prison complex in Guayaquil, was reinforced as a result of the brawl with firearms.

Policemen on horseback 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 her identity.

Due to the prison crisis, also fueled by the insufficient number of guards, and which has led the authorities to declare the system in emergency as of 2019, the military has been supporting the external control of prisons for months.

The prosecution pointed out that two policemen were among the injured and that “the struggle to hold power within the Litoral Penitentiary and the intention of the authorities to transfer the leaders of criminal organizations to other penitentiary centers in the country, would have been the triggers for the clashes ”, which left several inmates beheaded.

With the intervention of the Police “it was avoided that there were more violent deaths,” said General Fausto Buenaño, a police commander in Guayaquil.

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

More than 200 prisoners killed

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

“In 2021 there would be more than 200 people dead, as a result of violence in prisons. It is recalled that the States have a legal duty to adopt measures that guarantee the rights to life, personal integrity and security of persons in their custody ”, expressed on Twitter.

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

On Ecuador, with 17.7 million inhabitants, violence has become permanent in its 65 prisons, which hold 39,000 people out of a capacity for 30,000.

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

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

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

Two of the gangs that back Mexican cartels have about 20,000 members, according to police reports.

Ecuador between January and August 2021, it seized some 116 tons of drugs, mostly cocaine, compared to the record of 128 tons for all of 2020.

Located between Colombia and Peru, the main world producers of cocaine, the country is used as a transit for the shipment of drugs to the United States and Europe.

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