Violence in Ecuador now seems limitless. Armed men stormed the set of public television (TS) in Guayaquil (southwest Ecuador) on Tuesday afternoon, taking journalists and other staff hostage, according to images broadcast live on the channel.
“Don’t shoot, please don’t shoot!” “,” a woman screams amid gunfire as attackers armed with pistols, shotguns and some homemade grenades punch and knock terrified people to the ground.
One of them wears a hood, the others wear hoods and caps. Still others expose their faces or film themselves on mobile phones, while some make the usual acknowledgment signs with both hands to the drug-trafficking gangs that are causing terror in Ecuador.
Police intervention
“They have come to kill us, God save us,” one of the captured journalists wrote to an AFP reporter in a WhatsApp message. Complaining can be heard in the background. Despite the gunfire, these surreal images continue to be broadcast live for several minutes, even as the lights on the set go dark and the camera freezes. Until the police apparently intervened, shouting “Police, police.”
“National police units (…) have been alerted to this criminal act and are already on the scene,” the police said in a press release. This new high-profile incident, the outcome of which is still unknown, marks the culmination of a security crisis that nothing seems to be able to stop, after three days marked by the escape of a dangerous gang leader, a cascade of prison riots, the declaration of a state of emergency and, in particular, a kidnapping police officers.
“These are extremely difficult days,” Presidential Communications Minister Roberto Izurieta commented on Tuesday, taking “an important decision to directly combat these terrorist threats.” Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa declared his country in a state of “internal armed conflict” and ordered the “neutralization” of criminal gangs involved in drug trafficking, according to a decree unveiled Tuesday.
The crisis began on Sunday with the spectacular escape of 44-year-old Adolfo “Fito” Macias, leader of the Choneros. The gang of about 8 thousand people, according to experts, has become a major player in Ecuador’s thriving drug trade.
Source: Le Parisien
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