2023-09-01 00:50:00
A group of 57 police officers and prison guards continue to be held this Thursday inside the prison in the Andean city of Cuenca, in Ecuador, where since Wednesday the prisoners have been mutinying once morest the interventions of state forces to disarm the criminal gangs they control internally. the prisons.
In a press conference, the Minister of the Interior, Juan Zapataexplained that among those detained there are 50 guards and 7 policemen inside the Turi prison, as the Cuenca prison, capital of the Andean province of Azuay, located in southern Ecuador, is also known.
On social networks, a video allegedly recorded from inside the Cuenca prison went viral, apparently by the police and prison guards detained where they appealed to the Government to find a solution that allows their release.
In this recording, one of the spokesmen, who identifies himself as Police Lieutenant Alonso Quintana, asked the Executive to “do not make decisions that violate the human rights of persons deprived of liberty”while another person, in the uniform of prison guards, says that there are regarding 30 prison officers in this situation.
Around the detention center there are 400 soldiers and 200 police officers who have not entered the compound since Wednesday.
“We are concerned regarding the safety of our officials, both police officers and prison officers,” recognized Zapata, who affirmed that the authorities handle a line of action to safeguard the integrity of the detainees, although he said that he might not reveal it for security reasons.
The riot in the Cuenca prison, officially known as the Number 1 Deprivation of Liberty Center, began as a protest once morest the intervention that the Police and the Armed Forces carried out on Wednesday in the Latacunga prison, in the Andean province of Cotopaxi.
Simultaneously, another riot was also reported in the Azogues prison, capital of the province of Cañar, adjacent to Azuay, without the authorities having indicated at the moment that there are people being held by the prisoners inside.
The operation in the Latacunga prison sought to seize weapons held by the prisoners, which resulted in the seizure of 49 bladed weapons, two bulletproof vests, one ammunition, $85, thirteen gallons (49.2 liters) of craft alcohol, 39 mobile terminals, five telephony chips and four additional micro SD cards.
The three prisons (Latacunga, Cuenca and Azogues) are allegedly controlled by the Los Lobos criminal gang.
The intervention in Latacunga was added to other similar ones carried out in previous weeks in the Guayas prison complex, a group of five prisons that house some 12,300 people, where a war arsenal consisting of rifles, grenades, grenade launchers, explosives and thousands of of bullets, among other prohibited objects.
The objective of these searches is to disarm the criminal gangs that internally control Ecuador’s prisons and stop the series of massacres due to clashes between these groups that have left more than 400 prisoners murdered since 2020.
During the night of Wednesday and the early hours of Thursday, two car bombs exploded in Quito, in front of buildings linked to the National Service for Integral Attention to Persons Deprived of Liberty (SNAI), the state body in charge of the control and administration of prisons in Ecuador.
This was attributed by the authorities to an alleged response by organized crime once morest the operations in the prisons and once morest a series of transfers of prisoners who were changed prisons.
This situation of prison violence has also been transferred to the streets, which has caused the country to go from 5.8 to 25.32 intentional homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in five years in 2022, the highest figure in its history, with murdered recurring victims who have had politicians, judges and prosecutors, including the presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio.
EFE.
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