Prisoners at a prison in Cuenca, southern Ecuador, kidnapped 57 guards and policemen in protest against the transfer of prisoners to other prisons, said the interior minister on Thursday.
“We are concerned about the safety of our agents,” said Juan Zapata on a day marked by the explosion of two vehicles bombed in Quito, without causing any casualties.
– REOS DE CÁRCEL DE ECUADOR RETINEN A POLITICS AND GUARDIAS
It is in a prison in the Andean city of Cuenca, where inmates denounce state troopers’ interventions to disarm the criminal gangs that control the prisons.
A group of police and… pic.twitter.com/VGZ1VZVL5K
– Sivar News (@SivarNewsSV) August 31, 2023
| URGENT: Inmates at a prison in the Ecuadorian city of Cuenca have detained 57 prison guards, Interior Minister Juan Zapata has said. pic.twitter.com/ZJutjHEKfF
– World Alert (@WorldAlert2) September 1, 2023
On Wednesday, hundreds of soldiers and police carried out a search for weapons, ammunition and explosives in the prison of Latacunga (south), one of the largest prisons in the country.
Initially, the country’s penitentiary administration (SNAI) considered the hostage-taking in Cuenca a possible reprisal for the intervention of the armed forces in Latacunga, but authorities later indicated that the kidnapping was a protest against the transfer of prisoners to other penitentiaries devices.
Groups involved in the drug trade are waging a war for power in prisons that have become centers of operations.
Clashes between groups of prisoners are common. About 430 prisoners have died in Ecuador since 2021.
Faced with this wave of violence between organizations linked to Mexican and Colombian cartels, Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso declared a state of emergency for the entire prison system on July 24 for a period of 60 days, allowing the military to be placed in prisons with this measure.
Source: DN
