GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador: Streets are empty while soldiers are on the streets in several cities in Ecuador as the country reels from an unprecedented day of violence.
On Tuesday, masked gunmen stormed a public TV studio during a live broadcast in the city of Guayaquil and bombs were detonated across the country. More than 130 prison staff are being held hostage by inmates in five different jails.
A two-month state of emergency began on Monday after a notorious gangster Adolfo Macías Villamar vanished from his prison cell.
It is unclear whether the attack on the TV studio in Ecuador’s largest city was linked to the disappearance of the boss of the Choneros gang, Villamar, or Fito, as he is better known.
President Daniel Noboa declared the state of emergency following a wave of recent jail riots and escapes from prisons and other acts of violence the authorities believe were orchestrated by criminal gangs.
The government believes that the violence is a reaction to President Noboa’s plan to build a new high security prison for gangsters.
The president Wednesday said that the country would start deporting foreign prisoners, especially Colombians, to reduce the number of inmates.
Hours after the most brazen of the attacks, the city of Guayaquil was like waking up from a strange nightmare.
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Despite the deteriorating security situation over recent years, one could have hardly expected to see the anchor of state television channel TC with a gun pointed at his head, live on air. Police have made 70 arrests since Monday, including in response to the storming of the TV station.
The city streets are largely empty for a weekday as many recalled the life during the Covid pandemic. Hundreds of soldiers, including in tanks, are patrolling the streets of Guayaquil and Quito, the capital of the country. Schools have remained closed, with lessons taking place online across the country.
Some 125 prison guards and 14 administrative staff are being held hostage across Ecuador, according to the SNAI prisons agency.
Four police officers were also among the people kidnapped by criminals between Monday and Tuesday. Three other officers were freed late on Tuesday.
According to police, violence is ongoing in Guayaquil with eight people killed and three injured in attacks linked to criminal gangs in the city on Tuesday. Two police officers were killed by “armed criminals” in the nearby town of Nobol, said the police.
The situation in Guayaquil is unprecedented for the people – they have seen political protests and other violent incidents over the years but nothing on the scale of the sheer panic which gripped the city on Tuesday.
In recent years, the country’s prisons have been plagued by violent feuds between jailed members of rival gangs, often resulting in massacres of inmates.
