QUITO, April 15 (Reuters) – At least 12 inmates have died in an Ecuador jail amid a new clash between gangs, the SNAI prison agency said on Saturday, in a new chapter of frequent prison violence in the South American nation.
The confrontation took place on Friday in the prison known as La Penitenciaría, in the city of Guayaquil, one of the most dangerous in the country.
Ecuador has been plagued by prison riots since 2021, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of inmates, which the government attributes to clashes between drug gangs fighting for territory and control.
“Unfortunately, through the use of technology, 12 deceased people were visualized,” said SNAI in an institutional chat with the media.
The entity added that the prosecutor’s office and the police carry out the procedures in the jail to identify the bodies of the deceased.
Last year, both a United Nations delegation to the Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) found that violence in Ecuador’s prisons was caused by years of state neglect of the prison system.
President Guillermo Lasso – a former conservative banker facing impeachment hearings on corruption charges, which he has denied – has struggled to deal with rising violence in Ecuador, which is used as a transit point for cocaine moving to Europe. and United States.
Earlier this month, the Ecuadorian government modified a decree to allow civilian use of firearms and pepper spray, citing increased insecurity in the South American country.
The confrontation on Friday took place after the murder of three female prison officers in front of that prison. This week, the SNAI reported that six prisoners were found hanged in one of the pavilions of La Penitenciaría.
Lasso has increased the presence of the public force and has declared the prison system an emergency on several occasions, in an attempt to control the violence. (Reporting by Alexandra Valencia, editing by Nelson Bocanegra)
Source: Ambito
