QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Ecuador’s fragile security situation was highlighted Thursday by a series of car bombings and the taking of more than 50 police officers hostage in various prisons, just weeks after the country was rocked by the assassination of a presidential candidate.
Ecuador’s National Police reported that there were no injuries in the four explosions in the capital Quito and in a province bordering Peru, while Interior Minister Juan Zapata said none of the police officers taken hostage in six different prisons were injured.
Authorities said the brazen actions were criminal groups’ response to the relocation of various inmates and other measures by the country’s correctional system. The crimes occurred three weeks after the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio.
The penal system, known as the National Service for Attention to Persons Deprived of Liberty, lost control of large prisons in recent years, where violent riots broke out that left dozens dead. There is a need to move inmates to resolve gang-related disputes.
In Quito, the first bomb exploded on Wednesday evening in an area previously occupied by an office of the country’s correctional system. The second explosion in the capital occurred early Thursday outside the agency’s current location.
Ecuadorian National Police General Pablo Ramírez, the national director of anti-drug investigations, told reporters on Thursday that police found gas cylinders, fuel, fuses and blocks of dynamite in the rubble of the crime scenes in Quito where the first vehicle exploded was a small car and the second was a pickup truck.
Authorities said gas tanks were used in the explosions in the El Oro communities of Casacay and Bella India.
The fire department of the city of Cuenca, where one of the prisons where police officers are being held hostage is located, reported that an explosive device exploded on Thursday evening. The department did not provide any further details other than to say that a car was damaged in the explosion.
Zapata said seven of the prison hostages were police officers and the rest were prison guards. In a video shared on social media that Zapata identified as authentic, a police officer identifying himself as Lt. Alonso Quintana calls on the authorities “not to take decisions that violate the rights of persons deprived of their liberty”. He is surrounded by a group of police and correctional officers and says about 30 people are being held by the inmates.
Ecuadorian authorities attribute the rise in violence in the country over the past three years to a power vacuum triggered by the 2020 killing of Jorge Zambrano, alias “Rasquiña” or “JL,” the leader of the local Los Choneros gang . Members carry out contract killings, run extortion operations, move and sell drugs, and run prisons.
Los Choneros and similar groups linked to Mexican and Colombian cartels are fighting over drug trafficking routes and control of territory, including in prisons where at least 400 inmates have died since 2021.
Villavicencio, the presidential candidate, had a notoriously tough stance on organized crime and corruption. He was killed on August 9 at the end of a political rally in Quito, despite having a security detail that included police and bodyguards.
He had accused Los Choneros and its imprisoned current leader Adolfo Macías alias “Fito,” whom he linked to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, of threatening him and his campaign team days before the assassination.
Ecuador’s Security Minister Wagner Bravo told radio station FMundo that six relocated prisoners may have been involved in Villavicencio’s killing.
Quito Mayor Pabel Muñoz told Teleamazonas television that he hoped “justice will act quickly, honestly and forcefully.”
“We won’t give up. May peace, tranquility and security prevail among citizens,” Muñoz said.
The country’s National Police counted 3,568 violent deaths in the first six months of this year, far more than the 2,042 reported in the same period in 2022. The year ended with 4,600 violent deaths, the country’s highest in history and double the 2021 total.
The port city of Guayaquil was the epicenter of the violence, but Esmeraldas, a coastal city on the Pacific, is also considered one of the most dangerous in the country. According to authorities, six government vehicles were set on fire there earlier this week.