Prison violence leaves at least 68 dead in Ecuador
At least 68 prisoners were killed and more than two dozen injured in overnight violence at Ecuador's Penitenciaria del Litoral prison, the government said on Saturday, in what officials characterize as fights among rival gangs.
The penitentiary, located
in the southern city of Guayaquil, is the same prison where 119 inmates were
killed in late September in the country's worst incident of prison violence in
recent history.
The government has blamed
disputes between drug trafficking gangs for control of prisons for the
violence, reports Reuters.
Dozens were gathered
outside the prison on Saturday afternoon waiting for news of loved ones, who
many said they had not heard from since Friday afternoon.
Cristina Monserrat, 58,
still has not heard from her younger brother who has been in prison for a year.
"What is happening
inside is reprehensible, people killing each other and the saddest thing is
they have no conscience," said Monserrat. "My brother is alive, my
heart tells me so."
President Guillermo
Lasso, Monserrat added, must do more to help the poor. Ecuador's prison system
has come under harsh spotlight in recent years for overcrowding and poor
sanitary and living conditions for inmates.
Lasso in September
declared a 60-day state of emergency in the prison system, which freed up
government funding and allowed for military assistance in control of the
prisons.
On Saturday, the
president called on the constitutional court to allow the military to enter
prisons, instead of providing only outside security. The court responded in a
statement that a solution to the prison crisis will require more than temporary
emergency measures.
Further disturbances in
the penitentiary in the afternoon were under control by Saturday night, the
government said, adding it was meeting with rights groups and the United
Nations to handle the situation.
WAVE OF DISTURBANCES
The latest disturbance
was set off by a power vacuum following a gang leader's release, governor of
Guayas province Pablo Arosemena said in a press conference earlier in the day.
"The context of this
situation is that there was no leader of the gang that has this cell block
because a few days ago that prisoner was released," Arosemena said.
"Other cell blocks with other groups wanted to control them, get inside
and have a total massacre."
Videos on social media
purportedly posted by detainees overnight showed them begging for help to stop
the violence as shots and explosions sounded in the background. Reuters could
not independently verify the origin of the videos.
There has been a wave of
disturbances in the South American country's prisons, which house some 39,000
detainees, since the December 2020 killing of 'Rasquina,' the leader of the Los
Choneros gang, months after he was released from prison.
His death, officials said
at the time, prompted less well-known gangs to compete for influence over the
country's prisons. Gang rivalries are connected to competition for drug
trafficking alliances with international cartels, ex-officials said.
Officials said a February
incident that killed 79 detainees was a response to Rasquina's death. Another
22 people died in a July riot.
Prisoners in at least two
other prisons in Azuay and Cotopaxi provinces were refusing food in a hunger
strike on Saturday in solidarity with inmates at Litoral, the SNAI prison
authority said on Twitter.
Some of those killed in
the September violence at Penitenciaria del Litoral were decapitated or burned,
the attorney general's office has said, and dozens were injured.
"I don't know
anything, what we ask for are answers," said Estefania, who declined to
give her surname, and said her husband is jailed for a robbery. "I don't
know if he's alive or dead."