(Quito) At least five people were killed and eight injured on Sunday when three men opened fire inside a house in Guayaquil, one of the cities most affected by crime and drug trafficking in Ecuador, announced the police.
According to witnesses, three men on a motorcycle arrived in the area of Isla Trinitaria, in the south of the city, and entered the house where “they fired several shots”.
“So far, we have counted five dead and eight wounded,” police colonel Fabary Montalvo told reporters.
One of the dead is a police officer who was shot several times in the head, he said.
Located between Colombia and Peru, the world’s largest cocaine producers, Ecuador is experiencing the worst escalation of violence in its recent history.
Drug-related crime has caused the homicide rate to nearly double between 2021 and 2022, from 14 to 25 per 100,000 population.
On May 25, at least six people died and as many were injured after gunmen opened fire at a restaurant in the tourist town of Montañita.
Two days earlier, gunmen entered a funeral parlor in the nearby port of Manta and opened fire on attendees of a wake, killing four and injuring eight.
Authorities attribute the violence to conflicts between gangs and cartels over control of trafficking routes along the Pacific, a strategic corridor for the flow of drugs to the United States and Europe.