Seven people killed during a shooting in a pool room in Ecuador

Seven people were killed this Sunday, August 17 by armed attackers in a billiard room in Santo Domingo, in the northwest of Ecuador, in the middle of violence in the country, police announced.

The attackers, armed and hooded, shot several people in the pool room located in the Santo Domingo Bars area, about 160 km west of Quito, according to images transmitted on social networks.

The scene filmed by security cameras

The crime was recorded by security cameras. There are “seven people who died due to the fire of firearms,” police told the press, who conducts “investigations to elucidate the violent act and identify those responsible.”

According to local media, preliminary investigations indicate that these murders could be linked to organized crime in the region.

Ecuador, located between the two main cocaine exporters in the world, Colombia and Peru, has experienced an increase in violence due to the struggles between criminal gangs linked to Mexican and Colombian posters.

Between January and May, more than 4,000 homicides have been registered, according to official figures. Analysts consider that this is the beginning of the most violent year in the country’s recent history.

Despite the operations deployed and the establishment of the state of emergency in certain provinces of the country, the firmness policy of the Government of Daniel Nemaa has not reduced the number of violent deaths in the country.

14 people killed last weekend

Last weekend, 14 people were killed in massacres in the agitated province of Guayas, one of the four provinces in which Novoa recently declared the state of emergency to combat the violence of criminal gangs.

On August 10, eight people were killed by attackers who shot at a crowd at the exit of a nightclub. The same day, a group of attackers dressed in military uniforms killed six people in a popular district in Guayaquil, the second city of Ecuador and the critical point of the wave of violence that shakes the country.

According to official figures, 73 % of cocaine produced world traffic through equatorial ports. In 2024, the country entered a record of 294 tons of drugs, mainly cocaine, compared to 221 tons in 2023.