Nine people were murdered this Tuesday in Ecuador by regarding thirty armed attackers who arrived in boats and cars at a port for artisanal fishermen in the northern province of Esmeraldas, on the border with Colombia, authorities reported. The incident was recorded on video by security cameras.
The prosecutor’s office confirmed on Twitter “the removal of 7 corpses from the Artisanal Fishing Port of the canton (Esmeraldas) and 2 more in a nearby health center” who were transferred to the forensic center.
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Videos broadcast on social networks show the population removing bodies from the water while other bloody corpses lie on the floor of emeraldscapital of the province of the same name located regarding 300 kilometers north of Quito.
The attack occurred around 09:00 local time (14:00 GMT). when more than 1,500 people were in the port of this town with an Afro population and on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, explained the Minister of the Interior, Juan Zapata.
The identity of the deceased is unknown, although local media indicate that the majority were fishermen.
“We are going to capture them!” assured the right-wing president, Guillermo Lassoa Twitter.
“Reprisal”
“Thirty heavily armed people (…) generate these shots in a criminal, delinquent way”Said Minister Zapata in an interview with the Ecuavisa channel.
According to the head of the portfolio, the attack occurred because the fishermen “preferred the safety” of one of the organized gangs “and in retaliation” a rival group opened fire.
The attackers arrived at the port in two boats and an unknown number of cars.according to the official version.
One of the taxis in which they were traveling was abandoned at the port, the Prosecutor’s Office said in another tweet.
The Ecuadorian Navy announced on Twitter a deployment of troops to “intensify #military operations by air, sea and land” and “locate” those responsible.
Hours following the attack, the Armed Forces confiscated in surrounding areas “traumatic weapons, revolvers, outboard motors (…) cartridges, bladed weapons”, according to a message on Twitter.
He armed attack occurred in the midst of a state of exception decreed by Lasso on March 3 to mitigate the high rates of violence and crime in the province of Esmeraldas where 53% of the population is poor.
Located between Colombia and Peru, the main cocaine producers in the world, Ecuador faces an increase in drug trafficking and violent deaths.
Its murder rate has nearly doubled in the past year.going from 14 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2021 to 25 in 2022.
states of emergency
The tourist province of Esmeraldas is considered by the authorities as one of the places with “the highest levels of insecurity in the country.”
At the end of March, the police found there three heads wrapped in black bags, one of them of a teenager. According to the uniformed officers, they were people linked to criminal gangs.
Located in a strategic point of the Pacific, Esmeraldas serves as a corridor to take out the drug that goes to Europe and the United States, like other ports in the nation.
“In three weeks here, 1.2 tons of drugs have been seized,” said Zapata, who attributed the shooting to “fights between gangs, fights for territory.”
In 2021, Ecuador seized a record 210 tons of drugs. Last year the seizures exceeded 200 tons and so far in 2023 it has seized 48.9 tons.
The province is under a state of exception for the second time in less than six months, which implies a curfew and the deployment of public forces.
Last November, a reprisal by criminal gangs for the transfer of prisoners, which included the explosion of car bombs and clashes in prisons, led Lasso to declare a 60-day emergency in Guayas, Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas and Esmeraldas.
The coastal provinces of Santa Elena and Los Ríos, and the cities of Guayaquil, Durán and Samborondón (in Guayas) are currently under this restrictive measure.
