GUAYAQUIL: Six inmates were killed Friday during a disturbance inside a Guayaquil prison, authorities said, in the latest deadly unrest to strike Ecuador's penal system.
“An event occurred” in one of the cellblocks of the Guayas 1 prison, “resulting in six dead people,“ the SNAI national prison authority said in a statement.
The public prosecutor’s office said that its agents, along with police and the military, were “executing security protocols... in light of the disturbance that occurred Friday afternoon.”
It added in a statement on X, formerly Twitter, that “in the coming hours, specialized military personnel will carry out the first raids and reconnaissance of Pavilion 7, where the incidents originated, to take control of the situation.”
Guayas 1 is one of five facilities that make up a large prison complex in Guayaquil, a port city.
In late July, a riot in the Guayas 1 prison left over 30 people dead.
Conflict between powerful gangs linked to Colombian and Mexican cartels has led to more than 430 inmate deaths in Ecuador since 2021, in massacres that leave a trail of burned and dismembered bodies.
Dozens of guards were taken hostage at several prisons around the country in late August.
On the streets, homicides have quadrupled between 2018 and 2022, climbing to a record 26 per 100,000 inhabitants.
That rate could climb as high as 40 this year, according to experts.
Ecuador was once a peaceful haven nestled between the world's largest cocaine producers -- Colombia and Peru.
However, the war on drugs in other South American nations displaced drug cartels to Ecuador, which has large Pacific ports with laxer controls, widespread corruption, and a dollarized economy. -AFP
