2024-01-14 14:19:32
Held hostage for a week by mutinous prisoners in different Ecuadorian prisons, 136 people were released during the night from Saturday to Sunday, according to the prison administration.
Published on: 01/14/2024 – 3:19 p.m.
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After a week of ordeal, all the hostages – 136 people – who remained held by mutineers in Ecuadorian prisons were released during the night from Saturday to Sunday, the prison administration announced.
“This night, security protocols and the joint action of the police and the national army allowed the release of all the hostages who were held in different prisons in the country,” said this press release.
“Congratulations to the patriotic, professional and courageous work of the armed forces, the national police and the SNAI […] for having obtained the release of guards and administrative staff detained in the detention centers of Azuay, Cañar, Esmeraldas, Cotopaxi, Tungurahua, El Oro and Loja”, reacted immediately on X (formerly Twitter) President Daniel Noboa .
Congratulations to the patriotic, professional and brave work of the Armed Forces, National Police and the SNAI under the leadership of the minister @Palencia3Monica and Gian Carlo Loffredo for achieving the release of the prison security and surveillance body and the staff…
— Daniel Noboa Azin (@DanielNoboaOk) January 14, 2024
According to the police, 46 guards and one official were released from Cotopaxi prison (center), 13 from Tungurahua prison (center), and 15 others from El Oro prison (southwest), where the lifeless body of a civil servant was found.
Images released by police showed the guards, including many women, in tears, exhausted and supported by their colleagues shortly following their release.
“Thank God, we all came out well. We are in good health. Hoping that this will be a big step for the country towards peace,” the hostages released from Cotopaxi said in another video on social networks , waving an Ecuadorian flag.
For the past week of their detention, hostages, under threat from mutineers armed with knives or firearms, have regularly called on the authorities for help and restraint, according to videos regularly broadcast on the networks. At least two of them, one of whom was hanged, were executed by the mutineers, according to gruesome images.
Mediation of the Catholic Church according to the authorities
Some 175 guards and prison administration officials were taken hostage at the end of last week. Around forty of them were released during the day on Saturday, with the authorities citing mediation by the Catholic Church.
Throughout these hostage situations, the prison administration (SNAI) gave very few details, with security forces confronting mutinous prisoners in some penitentiaries and negotiating with them in others.
The announcement of the escape, on January 7, from the Guayaquil penitentiary (southwest), of the feared leader of the Choneros gang, Adolfo Macias, alias “Fito”, provoked a wave of mutinies and hostage-taking in at least five Ecuadorian prisons, as well as attacks on law enforcement and other acts aimed at sowing terror. At least 19 people were killed, according to the latest official update.
The young president, Daniel Noboa, declared a state of emergency and ordered the army to neutralize these criminal gangs, now considered “terrorist”. More than 22,400 troops have been deployed to conduct land, air and sea patrols. Searches and all-out operations are underway in prisons, while a curfew has been imposed.
After the wave of panic throughout the country caused by the live attack Tuesday on the studios of a public TV in Guayaquil, a large port on the southwest coast and epicenter of narco violence, the situation has returned to relative normality.
During the day, activity resumed almost normally, in Guayaquil as in Quito, even if Ecuadorians quickly returned to the safety of their homes at the end of the followingnoon.
Violence by criminal gangs
Considered a haven of peace under the presidencies of Rafael Correa (2007-2017), during which the rate of intentional homicides became one of the lowest in South America, Ecuador has in recent years become the center of shipment of cocaine produced in neighboring Colombia and Peru and the situation has deteriorated significantly.
Drug traffickers have gradually imposed their law in the country, exposed to the violence of criminal gangs. Ecuadorian prisons, overcrowded and divided into sections controlled by gangs, are notably the regular scene of bloody clashes between these rival gangs: Choneros (those from Chone, a town in the west of the country), Tiguerones (Tigers), Lobos (those from Chone, a town in the west of the country), Tiguerones (Tigers), Lobos (those from Chone, a town in the west of the country), Tiguerones (Tigers), Lobos (those from Chone, a town in the west of the country), Tiguerones (Tigers), Lobos (those from Chone, a town in the west of the country), Tiguerones (Tigers), Lobos (those from Chone, a town in the west of the country), Tiguerones (Tigers), Lobos (those from Chone, a town in the west of the country), Tiguerones (Tigers), Wolves) and other Aguilas (Eagles).
Elected last November on the promise of restoring security, Daniel Noboa, 36, is the youngest president in the country’s history. His predecessor, the conservative Guillermo Lasso, was confronted with several crises of violence in prisons and declared a state of emergency several times, without managing to regain control of the situation, and more generally to stem drug trafficking, linked to the corruption that is plaguing the country.
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