The information circulating on social networks mentions shots and even an explosive device in the fight between inmates
At least a person has dead and two others have been injured during a new brawl between inmates from the Litoral Penitentiary, in the port city of Guayaquil, in southwestern Ecuador, the National Comprehensive Care Service (SNAI) for Persons Deprived of Liberty (PPL) reported on Monday. “Unfortunately, it is reported that one of the people deprived of liberty who was taken to health homes has died,” the SNAI said in a WhatsApp message.
Although the reasons for the event are unknown, information circulating on social networks warn of a possible confrontation shot and the detonation of at least one explosive device in the Guayas Number 1 Deprivation of Liberty Center (CPL), also known as the Guayaquil Penitentiary.
“Faced with the incident alert issued at CPL Guayas No. 1, we have activated the corresponding security protocols,” the SNAI said in a Twitter message. “Preliminarily, it is reported that there are clashes between inmates at CPL Guayas No. 1. The National Police, through special groups, proceeds to activate the respective actions,” the source added in another message. In addition, it indicated that “in the face of clashes between inmates at CPL Guayas No. 1, administrative personnel were evacuated, among other actions, while the National Police carried out its dissuasive actions and control measures inside and outside the Center.”
Confrontation of “organized crime”
The director of the SNAI, Guillermo Rodríguez, wrote on that social network: “Unfortunately, a new confrontation took place at CPLGuayas Nº 1, between members of organized crime groupsIn addition, Rodríguez reiterated that the Police, the Armed Forces, the Government Human Rights Secretariat and the Ministry of Health “execute the respective actions in their fields of action.”
On October 3, another brawl between inmates in the Cotopaxi Number 1 prison, which lasted until the next day, left 16 dead and 43 injured, including Leandro Norero, accused of leading a drug gang in the country. On October 5, another massacre took place in the same Guayaquil Penitentiary, with 13 inmates killed and 18 injured, which was the ninth prison massacre since 2020. On the 8th, two inmates were found dead in a jail in the coastal province of Esmeraldas, in the northwest of the country and bordering Colombia. The next day, the SNAI reported that it had found more than 700 rifle bullets in the Guayaquil prison and that a police officer, whose whereabouts were unknown, was being investigated in this case.
More than 100 deceased in 2022
So far this year, more than 100 inmates have died violently in Ecuadorian prisons and more than 450 have been murdered since 2020. Human rights groups they have even qualified this situation as “prison genocide” in the face of the alleged lack of action by the State to stop the recurrent massacres in the prisons.
The Ecuadorian Executive, for its part, has ratified its commitment to comply with the suggestions issued by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) regarding the worrying prison situation in Ecuador, for which it blames criminal gangs, with alleged links to cartels. drug traffickers, who dispute the control of the prisons.