Riot in an Ecuadorian prison | The death toll rises to 68, the clashes continue

(Guayaquil) Extremely violent clashes between inmate gangs continued on Saturday evening at Guayaquil Penitentiary in southwest Ecuador, where at least 68 prisoners have been killed in the past 24 hours.

Mutilated and burned bodies, scenes of great “savagery”, “barbarism” … Using bladed weapons, firearms and explosives, the clashes began Friday evening in block 2 of this vast penitentiary center , the largest in the country.

The death toll on Saturday was 68 detainees killed and 25 others injured, according to the Attorney General’s office.

Saturday evening, then the police had nevertheless assured to have penetrated the same morning in this block 2, the spokesman of the presidency Carlos Jijon announced to the press “that at this moment new incidents occur inside the penitentiary , attacks are taking place from one neighborhood to another ”.

“Tiguerones”

“Attacks are taking place between pavilion 12 and pavilion 7, the police have entered the area at this time to protect the lives of the detainees,” Jijon said.

President Guillermo Lasso “holds a meeting with the high command of the armed forces and the police, a crisis cabinet has been set up”.

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”, according to the presidential spokesman.

Started in block 2, the violence has spread to other cell blocks, where criminal gangs (“Tiguerones”, “Lobos” and other “Latin King”) linked to drug trafficking are reigning terror.

According to the governor of the province of Guayas (of which Guayaquil is the capital), Pablo Arosemena, “the exchanges of fire were very intense, very close to the entrance doors of the penitentiary, with detonations”.

The attackers “tried to besiege, to corner” the detainees of block 2. The leader of this block, known as the leader of the “Tiguerones”, was released last Wednesday after serving 60% of his sentence.

“This cell block [avec quelque 700 prisonniers] now being without a leader, other blocs, along with other gangs, tried to break them down, enter and perpetrate a total massacre there, ”explained the governor, denouncing the“ savagery ”of the attackers, who uses explosives to pierce walls.

Bloody walls

On Saturday morning, the corpse of an inmate lay on the roof of the building, with white walls stained with freezing traces of blood.

Images released overnight from Friday to Saturday on social media, the authenticity of which has not been independently confirmed, showed inmates in a prison yard, beating sticks on a pile of bodies piled up, inanimate and in the process of being consumed in flames.

“We are locked in our pavilion. They want to kill us all ”, called for help, in another video, a prisoner of the attacked block. “Please share this video. Please help us! », Implored this inmate, with repeated detonations in the background.

In a tweet, President Guillermo Lasso offered his “sincere condolences to the families who have lost loved ones” and called for the establishment of “appropriate institutional tools” to deal with this new prison crisis.

On September 28, 119 people died in the same circumstances in this same Guayas 1 prison, in the largest massacre in Ecuador’s prison history and one of the worst in Latin America. Some detainees had been dismembered, beheaded, or burned.

After the massacre, President Lasso proclaimed a “state of emergency” in the 65 Ecuadorian prisons, promising in particular the deployment of significant military reinforcements.

On October 12, the Constitutional Court had however limited the duration of this “state of emergency” to the end of November, and prohibited the military from entering prisons.

Controversy

On Saturday, the president criticized this high legal body, seeing in this new bloodbath a “red flag for the institutions of the Ecuadorian state, in particular the Constitutional Court”.

The 65 Ecuadorian prisons can accommodate 30,000 people but are occupied by 39,000 detainees, an overcrowding of 30%. Weapons of all kinds, drugs and cell phones circulate there in large numbers.

Located between Colombia and Peru, the world’s main producers of cocaine, and used as a transit zone for shipping to the United States and Europe, Ecuador faces an increase in drug-related crime. , in particular in Guayaquil, port city and economic center of the country.

In the huge prison on the outskirts of the city, which houses 8,500 inmates and overcrowded by 60%, the violence has never stopped, despite multiple announcements from the government.

Fifteen detainees have been killed there since the end of September, and several incidents were reported this week.

With the latest massacres, riots in Ecuadorian prisons have left more than 308 dead since the start of the year.

On Saturday, dozens of families of prisoners, anxious or in tears, gathered in front of the penitentiary. “They are human beings, help them,” read one banner.