Dozens of people have been killed by a surge of violence in the most dangerous prison in Ecuador, just hours after President Guillermo Lasso declared a 60-day state of emergency throughout the country's prison system.
The prosecutor's office increased the death toll from 18 to 31 late Tuesday night after approximately 2,700 soldiers were deployed to assume control of the overcrowded Guayas 1 prison in the port city of Guayaquil.
Ecuador Prison Riot
According to the report, fourteen people were injured in clashes between rival factions. Through its communications secretariat Segcom, the government announced that "complete control" has been reestablished at the Guayas 1 prison, which shelters over 5,600 inmates.
It was reported that approximately 120 prison officers had been released after being held captive in six prisons across the country. There was no official information regarding rumored hunger strikes in some institutions, as per Aljazeera. Earlier, Guillermo directed police and military forces to assert control over the prisons of the South American nation, stating in a decree that Guayaquil inmates used firearms during the disturbance and set gas-fueled fires to facilities.
The decree stated that at least one of the violently deceased had been decapitated. Later, in a post on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, Lasso said, "With effort, commitment, and continuous labor, we will advance and regain the serenity that organized crime has stolen from us."
The government reported that hours after the decree, a new surge of violence broke out in the city of Esmeraldas, where 15 prison guards and two other employees were being held captive at the local jail.
According to BBC, the violence rapidly spread to other jails, and dozens of prison guards were taken captive in jails throughout Ecuador. The violence began in El Litoral, the largest men's prison in Ecuador, which is part of the Guayas prison complex in the coastal city of Guayaquil.
Many of the over 5,000 inmates are members of Ecuador's most violent groups, including Los Choneros, Los Lobos, Los Tiguereros, and Latin Kings. Numerous recent prison battles between rival factions, many of which have been fatal, have occurred at El Litoral.
In April, 12 convicts were killed in a gang-on-gang confrontation at El Litoral, but the deadliest incident occurred in September 2021, when 119 prisoners were killed. The authorities have attempted to alleviate the violence by lodging members of rival gangs in separate wings of the prison, but the prison's overcrowding has made it difficult to separate the warring factions.
Saturday's fatal brawl in El Litoral purportedly began between inmates housed in wing eight, where members of the gang Los Tiguerones are incarcerated, and those in wing nine, which is dominated by members of another gang, Los Lobos. Juan Zapata stated that the preponderance of fatalities occurred in the eighth wing. Rapidly, word of the bloody brawl in El Litoral spread to other prisons across the nation.
Ecuador Prison Chaos
In thirteen prisons, prisoners went on hunger strikes; in at least six prisons, prisoners took officers hostage. This pattern has been observed in previous prison conflicts, and some analysts attribute it to the decision to transfer gang leaders to prisons across the country.
The measure intended to reduce congestion in El Litoral and dismantle the prison bands that some of the most violent inmates had established within the Guayaquil jail. However, it appears that the move had unintended consequences, as the transferred prisoners formed new factions in prisons that had not previously experienced such extreme levels of violence.
As gang members communicate via mobile phones smuggled into their cells, the attacks on a gang in one jail have since prompted retaliatory attacks in other jails across the nation.
There has been very little official information regarding the hostage-taking guardians. The country's prison service announced late Tuesday that 120 prisoners had been released, but local media indicate that 15 officers and two employees at a prison in Esmeraldas province are still being held by prisoners. The prison service had previously stated that the hostage officers were all "in excellent health."
There have been no reports of prison officers being injured or killed. President Guillermo Lasso proclaimed a state of emergency in the prisons of Ecuador, allowing the deployment of soldiers and police officers.
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