Ten people were killed in an armed attack in the port city of Guayaquil, Ecuador’s economic capital, during a state of emergency over drug trafficking violence, local police said on Sunday.
The attack, which took place around midnight on Saturday night, took place at a mechanical workshop and left ten dead and two injured, police told reporters via WhatsApp.
The country’s attorney general’s office said on Sunday that it had “opened a preliminary investigation into the murder of ten people following an armed attack on Saturday evening (…) in Guayaquil”.
“There was a shooting[at a bar]where several people were drinking. Motorbikes came and shot at everyone who was there,” a witness told AFP on Sunday morning, who asked not to be identified.
The victims had gathered to watch a football game, witnesses said.
At the scene of the attack, bodies were still seen lying on the street, bathed in pools of blood. Around them, people cried and hugged as police cordoned off the crime scene, AFP journalists noted.
Authorities have so far reported no arrests in connection with the attack.
Guayaquil is one of the country’s most affected cities by drug trafficking and violence due to its location on the Pacific coast, strategic for the transportation of drugs to the United States and Europe.
Inside the country’s prisons, clashes between inmates have killed more than 420 people since 2021, while the outside prison homicide rate nearly rose between 2021 and 2022, rising from 14 to 25 per 100,000 people, authorities said.
Two weeks ago, around 30 gunmen opened fire on residents of the port of Guayaquil in the northwestern province of Esmeraldas, on the border with Colombia, killing nine fishermen.
According to the authorities, the victims were under the protection of a criminal group and were allegedly attacked by a rival group.