Ecuador will expel around 1,500 foreign prisoners, mostly from Colombia, Peru and Venezuela, to combat gangs and drug traffickers, President Daniel Noboa announced on Friday.
“Anyone who has an enforceable sentence of five years or more will be expelled from the country, [il s’agit] of about 1,500 people who came to this country to commit crimes, and these are not simple crimes, but serious crimes,” Mr. Noboa said at a news conference following a meeting on security in the port city of Guayaquil (Southwest).
According to the 2022 prison census, there are 3,245 inmates of foreign nationality in Ecuadorian prisons, representing 10% of the total prison population. There are 2,900 men among them.
President Noboa added that the Foreign Ministry is in contact with its counterparts in “Peru, Colombia and Venezuela,” as more than 80% of these 1,500 people come from these countries.
“These people will leave this country,” he emphasized again, without specifying the timetable for this measure.
The president also announced that he is working on a referendum with up to 14 questions that will focus on issues such as the scope of the armed forces, reform of the justice system and employment.
Ecuador, a country that has become a logistics hub for transporting cocaine to the United States and Europe, is plagued by violence from gangs and drug traffickers, with a record 26 murders per 100,000 residents in 2022, according to experts this year Year up to 40 could say.
Prisons are the scene of recurring massacres between rival gangs. Since February 2021, there have been at least a dozen massacres in which more than 460 prisoners died.
To control the most dangerous prisoners, the government has proposed building at least six security prisons, according to Interior Minister Monica Palencia.
President Noboa has already announced plans to lease three ships that can serve as offshore prisons, with the aim of separating the most dangerous prisoners while new facilities are built.