(Guayaquil) At least one prisoner died and two others were injured in fresh clashes on Monday at a prison in Guayaquil, Ecuador, the scene of a recent riot that left 13 dead, the prison administration (SNAI) said.
Posted yesterday at 11:14 p.m.
“Unfortunately, one of the prisoners who was taken to a health center […] died,” SNAI said on its Twitter account.
The administration had previously indicated that “three injured detainees were taken care of and transferred to health centers” in Guayaquil after “clashes between detainees” in Guayas 1 prison.
The police, who regained control of the prison a few hours after the start of the clashes, found in the cells more than 2,000 cartridges, a rifle, three pistols, knives, drugs and money.
A previous massacre on October 5 left 13 prisoners dead in this prison, which is part of a large complex comprising four other prisons with 13,000 prisoners.
The prison administration said the police had activated “deterrent” and “control” measures inside and outside the prison.
Two days earlier, clashes at the prison in the town of Latacunga, in the central Andes, left 16 inmates dead.
Ecuador faces unprecedented violence linked to drug trafficking, with gangs vying for control of this juicy market. Clashes are concentrated in overcrowded prisons, where around 400 inmates have been killed since February 2021.
Ecuador, which has a population of 18 million, is located between Colombia and Peru, the largest cocaine producers in the world. In 2021, the country seized a record volume of 210 tons of drugs. In the same year, the homicide rate nearly doubled to 14 murders per 100,000 people.