By Alexandra Valencia
QUITO (Reuters) – Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso has declared a 60-day state of emergency throughout the country’s prisons and authorized the armed forces to retake control of jails, the government said on Tuesday, following a wave of violence over the weekend.
Clashes between organized criminal gangs have taken place since Saturday at the Penitenciaria del Litoral prison in the city of Guayaquil, leading to the deaths of at least six inmates while 11 were injured.
In other prisons, inmates took nearly 100 guards hostage and prisoners in some jails began hunger strikes, without explaining why.
Ecuador has long been plagued by prison violence, with this latest surge taking place amid campaigning for elections scheduled for Aug. 20, pushing some presidential candidates to pledge prison reforms, including electronic surveillance systems and more prison officers.
According to the decree signed by Lasso on Monday, the prison in Guayaquil is the most dangerous in Ecuador, where inmates used firearms during the unrest and set fire to facilities using gas tanks.
The SNAI prison authority has worked to regain control of the prison since early Tuesday, it said in a posting on social media platform X, previously known as Twitter, which was accompanied by images of heavily equipped police and military entering Penitenciaria del Litoral.
Lasso also declared a state of emergency in the provinces of Manabi and Los Rios, as well as in the city of Duran on Monday, after the mayor of the city of Manta, Agustin Intriago, was shot dead on Sunday.
Military intervention in Ecuador’s prisons will continue until control has been retaken and there is no threat to prisoners or officials, the government said.
Lasso has regularly declared states of emergency in the country’s prisons as he tries to tackle violence which has surged since 2021, claiming the lives of hundreds of prisoners.
The prison system has faced structural problems for decades, prompting concern from the United Nations and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
(Reporting by Alexandra Valencia; Writing by Oliver Griffin, Editing by William Maclean)
