Within hours of the referendum in Ecuador, Mayor Jorge Maldonado was murdered: it is the second political crime in three days

Millennium

Quito.-Jorge Maldonado, mayor of the Portovelo canton, in Ecuador, was murdered this Friday in what is already the second crime of this nature in three days in the country.

“This morning, Jorge Maldonado, mayor of the Portovelo canton, #ElOro, was the victim of gunshots that caused his death,” the police indicated in a message on X.

The event occurred around 09:20 local time in the mining city while the official was carrying out personal tasks. There, in the middle of the street, he was approached by two still unidentified individuals who attacked him with shots and subsequently fled. Immediately, the Police deployed an operation in the area that, although they were not able to find those responsible, did allow them to identify an abandoned motorcycle in “the Y sector of Osorio, with similar characteristics to the one used in this event,” which will be added. to the expertise.

Images spread on social networks show the area cordoned off by the Police and captured the moment in which the mayor’s body is taken in the back of a van to a health center where his death was confirmed.

Maldonado’s murder occurred less than 48 hours following, this Wednesday, José Sánchez, municipal head of the mining town of Camilo Ponce Azuay, was also the victim of a gunshot wound. Then, the authorities confirmed “the cold-blooded murder of the fellow mayor”, in the midst of the wave of violence that the country has been going through for months, when President Daniel Noboa began a war once morest organized crime and deployed security operations in accordance with this “internal armed conflict”.

Last October, Sánchez had already reported to the press and the Prosecutor’s Office an alleged attack on his home, at a time when the municipality he led was facing illegal mining problems and which, as is the case in El Oro, is located in transit areas to the coast, where the main drug trafficking axis is constituted.

Likewise, these crimes took place on the eve of the referendum promoted by Noboa. This Sunday, Ecuadorians will go to the polls to express their will regarding the toughening of sentences to be applied in cases of organized crime, as well as the extradition of compatriots and the elimination of prison benefits for those convicted in cases of this nature. In total there will be 11 questions that will seek to give the authorities more tools to continue their fight.

Since the beginning of the year, when some drug kingpins escaped from their prisons, the wave of violence and insecurity worsened in Ecuador, forcing the Executive to use all its resources to disrupt these gangs and restore peace in the country. In fact, since January 2023, at least a dozen politicians have died at the hands of hitmen.

Among them, in addition to the two already mentioned, the case of the presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio stands out, murdered shortly before the elections, while leaving a campaign event, and that of the mayor of the coastal province of San Vicente, Brigitte García , in March of this year.Infobae.