Nearly 900 police officers were deployed to deal with the incidents, including 500 inside the prison complex.
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Clashes of extreme violence between criminal gangs linked to drug trafficking continued Saturday, November 13 in the penitentiary of Guayaquil, in southwest Ecuador. These clashes resulted in the death of at least 68 prisoners and left 25 injured in 24 hours. They began Friday evening in block 2 of this vast penitentiary center, the largest in the country. At the end of September, this establishment had already been the scene of one of the worst massacres of detainees in Latin America.
Saturday evening, while the police had nevertheless assured to have entered the same morning in this block 2, the spokesman of the presidency Carlos Jijon admitted that “new incidents were occurring inside the penitentiary”, with “attacks from one neighborhood to another”. The same spokesperson said shortly after that the police were inside the facility and the situation was there. “under control”. Nearly 900 police officers were deployed to deal with the incidents, including 500 inside the prison complex.
President Guillermo Lasso “holds a meeting with the high command of the armed forces and the police, a crisis cabinet has been set up”, according to the spokesperson. The head of state “invited representatives of civil society to start organizing a dialogue inside the prison in order to put an end to the barbarism taking place there”, he assured.