(Quito) The President of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, has ordered the extradition of all foreign prisoners incarcerated in the country, which is in the grip of an acute prison crisis amid the growing influence of drug traffickers.
He ordered the SNAI prison authority to carry out the necessary administrative procedures for foreigners to serve their sentences “in their country of origin or nationality”, in a decree signed on Monday.
Speaking to national media on Tuesday, the president said those detainees returned to their country of origin would be “banned from entering Ecuador forever.”
Mr. Noboa argued that the country’s prisons only have 30,200 places for more than 33,000 inmates. A census carried out in 2022 established that more than 10% of people detained in Ecuador were of foreign nationality.
Quito declared a state of emergency on January 8 after the escape of a gang leader, Adolfo Macias known as “Fito,” sparked an unprecedented wave of criminal violence across the country.
Gangs linked to drug trafficking and involving Colombians and Mexicans in particular are waging a merciless war even in the prisons, where since the start of the year at least 20 people have been killed and where some 200 police officers and guards have been taken hostage.
PHOTO KAREN TORO, REUTERS ARCHIVES
A military vehicle next to a prison, as Ecuador’s armed forces enter the country’s prisons in an attempt to restore order after the release of prison guards and other staff who had been taken hostage
In mid-January, Mr. Noboa announced the extradition of some 1,500 Colombian prisoners, a measure rejected by Bogota which had warned that those unilaterally repatriated would be released as soon as they crossed the border.
On Tuesday, Colombian Justice Minister Nestor Osuna said that in recent talks with the Ecuadorian government, they had agreed on repatriation “on a case-by-case basis, studied one by one, respecting the conditions of the treaty” signed in 1990.
“This is good news from a good exercise of diplomacy which makes it possible to resolve a problem within the framework of the rules in force, in a sincere spirit of collaboration between the two countries,” he commented.
According to the Colombian government, the process could last up to six months and the prisoners concerned must have served 50% of their sentence. In 2023, 10 prisoners were repatriated from Ecuador to Colombia.
As part of his plan to pacify prisons, corrupted by all-powerful gangs, President Noboa plans to build two high-security prisons for the most dangerous inmates over the next eleven months.
The young president, who took office in November for a short term until 2025, declared war on around 20 gangs linked to Colombian and Mexican cartels following the escape of a drug lord .
Faced with the violence of these groups, Mr. Noboa deployed the army in the streets and prisons, which made it possible to make nearly 4,500 arrests and seize 40 tons of drugs since the beginning of January. The gangs’ bloody response left around twenty dead.