And I add: “The entire public force will be available to restore control of the city; we will not allow organized crime to try to control the country”.
The state of exception will be in force for 30 days, clarified the Ministers of the Government, Francisco Jiménez, and of the Interior, Patricio Carrillo.
The explosion, which occurred this morning and whose causes had not been specified by the authorities until this afternoon, also affected at least eight homes and two cars, which were destroyedaccording to the National Risk Management Service (SNGR).
It was a “explosion of proportions”Police said on Twitter.
In the afternoon, the The Municipality of Guayaquil raised the number of people injured in the explosion from 16 to 26 and clarified that 10 of them were in “critical condition”.
“Organized crime mercenaries, who have drugged the economy for a long time, now attack with explosives; it is not a problem of the Ecuadorian Police, it is a declaration of war against the State”Carrillo wrote on Twitter, sharing the news this morning.
Shortly after, the The Ministry of Government described the incident as a “terrorist act”.
The mayor of Guayaquil, Cynthia Viteristated that it was “an attack provoked by criminal gangs” and maintained that “Criminal gangs have become a State within the State”.
In addition, he claimed that Lasso “Take due action on the matter”according to the local newspapers El Comercio and Expreso.
“The lady mayor does not seem to understand that the enemy of the country is the narcoterrorism that wants to install itself in society, and not the government”Lasso replied via Twitter.
“In countries that have lived through these painful experiences, the authorities act in unity and not divided as their statements suggest”added the head of state.
El Comercio described that “the explosion was so powerful that it destroyed a large part of three houses”; that “the public lighting poles and cables also fell to the ground,” and that “several vehicles that were on the road ended up totally affected.”
According to witnesses quoted by the newspaper, Immediately before the explosion was heard, there was a shootout between groups of people on motorcycles and then some of them threw a burlap bag at a food store.
“There would have been the explosives that detonated seconds later,” the newspaper said.
The Police began a search – which included reviewing the images from the security cameras in the area – to find the perpetrators of the attack and the Home Office offered a $10,000 reward for anyone who could provide valuable information about the incident.
Ecuador, located between Colombia and Peruthe largest producers of cocaine in the world, faces a wave of crime linked to drug trafficking, which leaves scenes of terror with decapitated bodies hanging from bridges in the style of the modality used by the Mexican drug cartels.
The clashes extend to the prisons, where since February 2021 there have been seven massacres with nearly 400 dead inmates.
“Either we unite to confront it (organized crime) or the price will be even higher for society”Carrillo warned in his message.
The most recent report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)published in June, indicates that Ecuador in 2020 seized 6.5% of the total cocaine seized in the world.
In 2021, Ecuador seized a record 210 tons of drugs, most of them cocaine. In the first half of this year, seizures exceed 100 tons.
Last year the nation, with 18 million inhabitants, closed with a rate of 14 murders per 100,000 people, almost double that of 2020.
Source: Ambito
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