Prisons in the hands of criminal gangs, streets subjected to the terror of weapons and governments cornered by the power of drug addicts: Ecuador, once an oasis of peace, is once again on the brink and declaring itself one “armed internal conflict”.
• Also read: “Don’t shoot, please don’t shoot!”: A hostage situation live on television in Ecuador
• Also read: Dangerous gang leader on the run, police officers kidnapped: a state of emergency is declared in Ecuador
Less than two months after taking office, young President Daniel Noboa, 36, vowed to combat the country's growing violence related to drug trafficking and engaged in open confrontations with criminal gangs.
What triggered the crisis?
The escape on Sunday of the feared leader of the Choneros gang, Adolfo Macias, alias “Fito,” from the maximum security prison in Guayaquil, a large port in the southwest of the country, is the starting point of this new episode of violence.
Photo AFP
The 44-year-old drug agent, who was pictured with long, shaggy hair and a distinctive beard during a recent prison transfer, had been serving a 34-year sentence since 2011 for organized crime, drug trafficking and murder.
He disappeared on the eve of a police operation about which he had apparently been informed beforehand. He had already escaped in 2013, but was captured again after three months.
Following this escape, two prison officers were arrested.
On Monday, President Noboa, who was elected in November on a promise to restore security in the country, declared a state of emergency.
In another decree on Tuesday, he ordered “the mobilization and intervention of the armed forces and the national police” to “ensure sovereignty and national integrity against organized crime, terrorist organizations and non-state warring parties.”
What was the gang's reaction?
After the escape of “Fito”, there were several mutinies and hostage-takings of guards in various prisons, which were spread on social networks through frightening videos that showed the threat to prisoners from the knives of masked prisoners and the execution of at least two guards with firearms hanging.
Photo Fernando MACHADO / AFP
According to the prison administration, which rarely communicates on the issue, a total of 125 prison guards and 14 administrative officials are being held hostage in at least five prisons.
On Tuesday, Fabricio Colon Picole, leader of another powerful gang, the Lobos, also escaped.
Also on Tuesday, gunmen stormed the set of a public television station in Guayaquil and took journalists and station employees hostage until police intervened.
AFP
With all the violence since the crisis began, at least ten people have died.
The gangs have alliances with foreign organizations such as Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel and coordinate their operations from overcrowded prisons under the complicit gaze of guards.
AFP
How did Ecuador get here?
The country, once an oasis of peace in South America, has been plagued by violence, with a murder rate of 46 murders per 100,000 people in 2023, the highest in its history.
Analysts believe that this “extreme” violence in the country has intensified under the government of conservative President Guillermo Lasso (2021-2023), who is cracking down on criminal gangs behind car attacks, trapping, shootings or kidnappings.
Each time these gangs attempted to intimidate Ecuadorians, President Lasso responded with violence by placing the country under a state of emergency.
“What we have are three criminal organizations that no longer oppose each other, but that oppose the state, they have a common enemy,” emphasizes César Carrion, researcher at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (Flacso) to AFP.
President Noboa, who emerged victorious from a presidential election campaign in which one of the main candidates was assassinated, is taking an even harsher course than his predecessor.
AFP
He recently announced the construction of high-security prisons on boats and in the middle of the jungle, the strengthening of the secret service and border control, and the planned expulsion of more than a thousand foreign prisoners.
The youngest president in Ecuador's history promised an end to the era in which criminals “dictated to the government what to do” and took steps to “take back control” of prisons.
“The iron fist is now being used explicitly and with great legitimacy by the population because they are exhausted and can no longer take it,” analyzes César Carrion.