Like its famous Malecon, a long promenade which overlooks the brownish waters of the Guayas River, today strangely deserted, Guayaquil, the large port city on the Pacific coast of Ecuador, is buried.
The gardens along the cement quay overlooking the river are prohibited from access. The restaurants that usually serve tourists with the famous local shrimp are closed.
The city of more than 3 million inhabitants, the heart of the Ecuadorian economy, but also the epicenter of drug trafficking, lives in the psychosis of the blind violence of criminal gangs, in a state of open war since Sunday against the Ecuadorian executive.
Not a soul lives on the Malecon. The neighboring city center, the heart of the city with its administrations and its business district usually teeming with people at this time when the offices are leaving, is strangely empty.
A few vehicles on the main avenues, rare pedestrians hurrying to return home, in front of storefronts with iron curtains left down.
Tigers and Wolves
The town hall with its elegant colonial architecture is also deserted, like the neighboring governorate. The many banks in the area have apparently closed shop. Even the gates of the neo-Gothic Catholic cathedral and the century-old iguana park opposite it, a favorite tourist attraction, are padlocked.
But where have they all gone? “Everyone is afraid… It’s been like this since yesterday [mardi]because of everything that happened…” grumbles a destitute man sitting on a street corner, a little surprised himself by this ghost town spectacle.
The situation had already been tense since Sunday, with the escape of public enemy number 1, “Fito”, the feared leader of the Choneros gang, from the huge Guayas penitentiary, on the outskirts of the city.
His escape precipitated an unprecedented security crisis throughout the country, with a wave of mutinies, attacks on security forces, cars and public facilities set on fire…
Crisis followed by the muscular response of young President Daniel Noboa who declared a state of emergency, launched the “war” against the gangs and mobilized the army in the streets.
It was the spectacular assault on Tuesday by around fifteen armed and hooded individuals on the set of a public television in Guayaquil, and the robbery live on the screens of journalists with guns to their heads, which literally sowed panic in the city.
The rapid intervention of the police made it possible to put an end to the hostage-taking without causing any casualties, with the arrest of thirteen attackers. But the massacre was narrowly avoided, according to consistent testimonies collected by AFP.
The objective of the hostage-takers, mostly teenagers claiming to be members of the Tiguerones (Tigers) and the Lobos (Wolves), two local criminal gangs, was “clearly to kill”. Their amateurism and their procrastination gave the police a welcome respite to intervene, said a police source.
” Spreading terror “
The “message” of these criminal groups “is clear, to sow fear and terror,” commented General Victor Herrera, one of the main police officials in Guayaquil, the day after the attack.
“It is important to be aware of the level of risk faced by […] the city,” underlined this officer, reporting 14 assassination attempts in 24 hours.
He insisted on the “recommendations” of the police to protect the population, and in passing deplored the role of social networks in this crisis, networks via which members of gangs, now designated as “terrorists”, want to “create the panic “.
One example among others: the video broadcast on Wednesday showing two individuals threatening with weapons in their hands, dressed in the uniform of a famous home food delivery company and wearing an Anonymous mask.
Sometimes nicknamed “GuayaKill”, the city, a major export point for cocaine produced in neighboring Colombia and Peru, is nevertheless familiar with violence.
At the end of June 2023, it had a homicide rate of 40.8 per 100,000 inhabitants, with 1,425 assassinations recorded in six months, almost double compared to the same period in 2022. Since the summer, the rate of these Assassinations have continued to accelerate, particularly in working-class neighborhoods, territories of criminal gangs undermined by insecurity.
In the city center, the police presence remains relatively discreet, with the exception of the military cordon deployed in front of the immense tower serving as the residence of President Noboa. Patrols of motorcycle acrobats appear here and there.
This deployment is much more visible around strategic points, such as the airport, traversed by soldiers with masked faces and rifles slung over their shoulders.
The city’s public hospitals only provide emergency services. Students from all schools were sent home.
“Now we wait and see,” slips Fernando, a taxi waiting for the customer in front of the Mall del Sol, one of the few shopping centers that remains open, but also ghostly. “Because what we have learned here is that criminal gangs are unpredictable,” he warns.