Five people died and another 16 were injured this Sunday due to an explosion in Guayaquilthat the government of Ecuador attributed to organized crime that hits the country, reported authorities and relief agencies.
“Mercenaries of organized crime, which have drugged the economy for a long time, are now attacking with explosives. It is not a problem of the @PoliciaEcuador. It is a declaration of war once morest the State,” Interior Minister Patricio Carrillo wrote on Twitter when sharing the news.
The incident, whose causes have not yet been specified by the police, also leaves eight houses and two cars destroyed, according to the National Risk Management Service (SNGR).
It was an “explosion of proportions,” the police said on Twitter.
Three people died at the scene of the detonation and the other two died in a city hospital, General Víctor Zárate, commander of zone 8, to which Guayaquil (southwest) belongs, told the press.
He added that in addition there are 20 wounded, who are being treated in various medical centers.
In principle, the National Risk Management Service (SNGR) had reported 16 injuries due to the explosion, which occurred around 0300 in the morning (0800 GMT) in the popular neighborhood of Cristo del Consuelo.
Zárate added that according to preliminary information, two people aboard a motorcycle arrived in the sector and near a restaurant “placed a sack” inside which it is presumed that “a high-power explosive was found.”
Ecuadorlocated between Colombia and Peru, the world’s largest cocaine producers, escaped drug violence for years, which now leaves scenes of terror in the streets with decapitated bodies hanging from bridges in the style of the Mexican cartels.
The clashes extend to the prisons, where since February 2021 there have been seven massacres with nearly 400 dead inmates. The authorities consider that these are clashes between gangs linked to drug trafficking that are fighting over territories for sale.
Reward
The explosion, whose causes have not yet been specified by the police, It also leaves eight houses, four vehicles and a motorcycle damaged.
The houses lost their walls and it was possible to see inside. On the streets and cars there were fallen power lines, and a trail of blood was observed on the trunk door of a vehicle.
The sector is surrounded by fences and police guard the street where the explosion took place.
“Either we unite to confront it (organized crime) or the price will be even higher for society”Carrillo warned in his message.
The minister also announced a reward of up to $10,000 to anyone who provides information regarding this incident.
The most recent report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), published in June, indicates that Ecuador in 2020 it seized 6.5% of the total cocaine seized in the world.
In 2021, Ecuador seized a record 210 tons of drugs, most of them cocaine. In the first half of this year, seizures exceed 100 tons.
Last year the nation, with 18 million inhabitants, closed with a rate of 14 murders per 100,000 people, almost double that of 2020.
Last May, a car exploded in front of a police station in the port of Guayaquil without leaving any victims. On that occasion, the police institution called the incident a “terrorist attack”.