2023-09-01 15:57:24
Between last night and today, Quito experienced an unusual series of attacks in which two car bombs exploded at the headquarters of the organization that manages the prisons. The authorities attributed these actions as an alleged response by organized crime once morest operations in prisons and once morest a series of transfers of inmates to other detention centers.
the outbursts
The attacks, which began last night in a commercial area of the Ecuadorian capital, did not leave victims but generated a marked alert, especially the explosion of the two car bombs: a sedan and a truck. One exploded in front of the current headquarters of the Service for Attention to Persons Deprived of Liberty (SNAI) and the other in front of offices of the same unit. The director of Police Anti-Drug Investigation, General Pablo Ramírez, explained to the press that the sedan had “two gas cylinders with fuel, a slow fuse and apparently blocks of dynamite.”
Six people, including a Colombian citizen, were arrested on Wednesday night for their alleged relationship with one of the explosions. His capture occurred while they were traveling in a vehicle that had been reported stolen, just like the car used for the alleged attack. Ramírez indicated that some of those apprehended have records such as extortion, robbery and murder. “Three of them were arrested 15 days ago for the theft of a truck and kidnapping for extortion in different parts of the city and they were released with alternative measures,” said the police chief.
President Guillermo Lasso, a frequent user of the X social network to disseminate his government measures and actions, has not yet expressed himself regarding these explosions. Neither did the ballotage participants, Luisa González, from Revolución Ciudadana, and Daniel Noboa, from Acción Democrática Nacional (ADN). Meanwhile, the mayor of Quito, Pabel Muñoz, affirmed that “a day was not easy, with a complex and strange followingnoon and early morning.”
The Ecuadorian capital had only experienced two events with some similarities to the recent attacks: in November 1982 there was an explosion in front of the Israeli embassy, which left two policemen dead, and which some versions attributed to the now-defunct group Alfaro Vive Carajo (AVC ); and in May 1984 two pamphleteering bombs exploded near the United States embassy and in the Metropolitan Cathedral, in this case without fatalities.
prison crisis
The violence intensifies in the middle of the campaign for the presidential elections in Ecuador, a month and a half before the ballotage, which will be held on October 15. Without going any further, one of the favorite candidates, former journalist Fernando Villavicencio, was shot dead by Colombian hit men on August 9 in Quito. To this must be added the tension in prisons.
On Wednesday, the police and military carried out an operation in the Cotopaxi and Turi prisons, and decided to transfer some gang leaders. This generated a riot by the inmates and the retention of prison officers. In the last few hours, a video was released on social networks, in which part of the police officers held in Turi demand that the Lasso government not adopt decisions that violate the human rights of them and the prisoners. “This message is to tell them not to make decisions that violate the human rights of persons deprived of liberty,” said the spokesman for the agents, dressed in military camouflage uniform, accompanied by other guides, in the video.
The message was confirmed as true by the Minister of the Interior, Juan Zapata, according to the Notimundo news portal. “They want to intimidate the State to prevent us from continuing to fulfill the role that the armed forces and the police have in controlling these prisons,” Security Minister Wagner Bravo said in a radio interview.
The growth of violence
A state of exception is currently in force throughout the Ecuadorian territory and another for the prison system, for 60 days each, following the crime in Villavicencio. This situation enables the military to patrol the streets and intervene in the control of prisons, where the gang war spreads, generally allied to Mexican and Colombian drug cartels.
In addition, the port city of Guayaquil, the second largest in Ecuador and located on the Pacific, recently became an important transit point for cocaine to Europe and the United States. There, drug gangs carry out prison massacres, kidnappings, extortion and car bomb attacks. On occasions, the corpses of his victims were found dismembered and hung from bridges, in the style of Mexican cartels. The violence spreads to the streets of the country, where the homicide rate has quadrupled since 2018, setting a record of 26 per 100,000 inhabitants.
1693584812
#car #bombs #exploded #Quito #riots #prisons #Violence #intensifies #month #ballotage #Ecuador
