Ecuadorian prisons are vulnerable to brutal violence due to, among other things, overcrowding, inadequate guarding and heavy arms smuggling.
Ecuador announced on Thursday that it had sent 400 police to restore order to one of the country ‘s largest prisons, which killed at least 116 people and injured 80 in a riot that escalated into a firefight this week.
According to the news agency Reuters, what has happened is the most fatal prison fight in the country’s history. The violence was the result of power struggles between Mexican drug cartels.
Residents of a prison in the port city of Guayaquil were armed with revolvers and hand grenades, among other things. On Wednesday, soldiers were sent to besiege the prison.
President Guillermo Lasso on Wednesday promised more money and guards to the country’s prisons to prevent clashes.
Riot began on Tuesday when a group of prisoners crawled from their ward through a hole in another ward where they attacked members of a rival criminal gang, says the British Broadcasting Corporation BBC.
Local media have reported that the killings may have been ordered from outside the prison, reflecting the ongoing power struggle in Ecuador between Mexican drug cartels.
According to the BBC, the brutal violence seen in the prison riot is characteristic of Mexican cartels, which often kill their rivals brutally to incite terror.
In a riot only a few police officers were injured, which also suggests a war between prisoners rather than a prison uprising.
The IACHR Commission on Human Rights in North, Central and South America said it condemned the violence and called on Ecuador to prevent criminal groups from operating in penitentiaries. It called for better security and control of prisons.
There have been several brutal clashes in Ecuadorian prisons in recent years. In February, 79 prisoners died in battles held simultaneously in four prisons. One of them was held in the same prison as the last riot. In July, 22 people died in a prison fight.
Ecuador is located between two major cocaine-producing countries, Colombia and Peru. It is a key transit country for drug shipments to the United States and Europe.
Mexican cartels have expanded into Ecuador and allied with Ecuadorian criminal groups, contributing to violence in prisons. In addition, Ecuadorian prisons have more prisoners than they can accommodate and too few guards.
Ecuador leading prisons Bolívar Garzón considers the heavy arming of prisoners to be a problem. According to him, a large number of weapons have been smuggled into prisons, of which the police find only a small part.
President Lasso has attributed increased violence to prison overcrowding. He said in the summer that prison capacity has been exceeded by 30 per cent.
Lasso said at the time that an attempt could be made to alleviate the overload by speeding up the release of certain prisoners. These could be those who have served most of their sentences or have been convicted of minor offenses.
The president declared a state of emergency in Ecuador’s prisons on Wednesday, giving the authorities the power to deny prisoners rights and the military the power to restore order.
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source https://pledgetimes.com/ecuador-ecuador-sent-400-police-to-calm-the-prison-which-killed-more-than-a-hundred-prisoners-in-the-riot/
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