Inmate families face an ordeal due to information after prison massacre in Ecuador

Gathered around a cell phone, a group of women begs an inmate on the other end of the line for information about his relatives. They shout their names in the hope of knowing if they survived the new massacre in a prison in Ecuador.

“There are relatives here from ward two and they need to know about the boys”, says the woman holding the phone. A choked voice tries to respond. Suddenly, there is only silence. Communication is cut off and frustration springs up among those who seek news of their own.

A new bloodbath at the Guayas 1 penitentiary, which began Friday night and lasted until Saturday, leaves at least 68 dead and 25 injured. In that same jail, located in the port of Guayaquil (southwestern Ecuador), 119 inmates died in a massacre recorded in September, with their bodies decapitated and burned.

So far this year, more than 320 prisoners have died in riots in the prisons of Ecuador, whose state of exception has not been able to stop the massacres behind bars.

Berta Yago was asking for help to get her nephew Roberto Cevallos out, who is about to complete a sentence of three and a half years for robbery.

“Help me get him out before they take him out dead”the 51-year-old woman told AFP, who recounted that in the butcher shop almost two months ago the 22-year-old was attacked with a machete.

Others cannot bear the pain and collapse outside the jail, in the north of Guayaquil. Heartbreaking screams are heard in the background. “Oh my son!”cried a woman.

“Indolent”

In the police forensic center there is also outrage at the lack of information.

“In the penitentiary they don’t say anything and here in the morgue neither. The authorities are indolent. Prisoners are human beings too “Paola Quiñónez told AFP, while hugging her sister, crying because she did not know if her son was among the victims.

Quiñónez moved devastated from the jail to the legal medicine center, because she had seen her son’s name on a list of alleged deceased that circulated among the relatives of prisoners. I hadn’t spoken to him since last week.

Images released by social networks, through live broadcasts and whose authenticity has not been confirmed by the authorities, show bloody corpses and inmates setting them on fire, and hitting and hitting bodies with machetes.

Loud detonations and voices are also heard asking to close the doors to prevent the attack by inmates of rival gangs with ties to drug trafficking who are vying for power.

Governor Pablo Arosemena commented at a press conference that there was “Very intense bullet crossings” and one “Savage situation”In the penitentiary, one of the most important in the country, with 8,500 inmates and an overcrowding of 60%.

For a cell phone

Authorities indicated that to try to restore order, the Police entered the jail several hours after the riot began due to the high risk for those in uniform due to the high level of violence, with short and long firearms and explosives.

Conservative President Guillermo Lasso expressed his condolences to the victims’ families and veiled criticism of the Constitutional Court for limiting the state of exception in prisons, decreed in September, by preventing the military from entering prisons.

“The first right that we must guarantee is the right to life and citizen freedom, which is not possible if the public force cannot act to protect”, Lasso wrote on Twitter.

While the president was holding a meeting with the security committee, Félix González, the father of a prisoner, arrived at the morgue carrying a copy of his son’s identity card.

With reddened eyes, he asked a crime police officer to search for his body. “He is my second son. It is not fair that I die from stealing a cell phone “, it indicates to the AFP.

The man, exhausted by the search for information, points out that he will not rest until he knows the fate of his son. “How am I going to sleep if I haven’t talked to him since Thursday. No one deserves this suffering”, He expressed on the verge of tears.