An explosion attributed to organized crime in Ecuador left five dead this Sunday and forced the president, Guillermo Lasso, to declare a state of emergency in the coastal city of Guayaquil, one of the most affected by crime linked to drug trafficking.
“I have stated in state of exception a the city of Guayaquil due to criminal events in recent hours. The entire public force will be available to reestablish control of the city”said the president on Twitter.
Mira: Government of Ecuador will give reward for information on “terrorist” explosion
Lassowho took office a year ago, warned: “We will not allow organized crime to try to run the country”, where the narco leaves scenes of terror in the streets with decapitated bodies hanging from bridges in the style of the Mexican cartels.
The state of exception It will take effect from this Sunday in this port of 2.8 million inhabitants in the southwest of the country and will last for 30 days, the National Secretary for Public Security and the stateDiego Ordonez.
In April, Lasso declared for 60 days a state of exception in the provinces of Esmeraldas, Manabí and Guayas, whose capital is Guayaquil, a because of the violence linked to drug trafficking.
The burst What happened early this Sunday in the popular Cristo del Consuelo neighborhood left 5 dead who have been identified and have no criminal record, Interior Minister Patricio Carrillo also said at a press conference.
The official specified that because of the detonation there are 17 wounded, some with priors. “Many of them, if not the majority, are taking refuge in silence and do not want to contribute with the investigation”, Indian.
Earlier, authorities had reported 20 personas with injuries.
War declaration
When the incident became known, Carrillo expressed on Twitter that the burst era “a declaration of war on state” and attributed it a “organized crime mercenaries”.
“Either we unite to confront it (organized crime) or the price will be even higher for society”the minister tweeted.
The investigations indicate that two people aboard a motorcycle arrived in the neighborhood and near a restaurant “placed a sack” inside which it is presumed that “a high-power explosive was found,” General Víctor Zárate, commander of the armed forces, told the press. zone 8, to which Guayaquil belongs.
The explosion affected eight houses, four vehicles and a motorcycle. 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 government has offered a $10,000 reward to anyone who turns in information regarding the case.
the once peaceful Ecuador, located between Colombia and Peru, the largest cocaine producers in the world, faces the increase in violence linked to drug trafficking. Last year the nation, with 18 million inhabitants, closed with a rate of 14 murders per 100,000 personasalmost twice as much as in 2020.
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.
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.