Seven people were detained
Thirty-one people died on Sunday during a day of violence in a prison in Machala, southwest Ecuador, prison authorities announced.
After clashes with firearms and explosives caused four deaths on the night of Saturday to Sunday, authorities reported another 27 deaths, many of them due to asphyxiation.
Ecuador’s prisons have become centers of operations for rival drug trafficking gangs, who have been involved in clashes that have left around 500 dead since 2021.
Residents of the neighborhood where the prison in Machala is located heard gunshots, explosions and calls for help coming from the detention center, on Sunday, at around 03:00 local time (08:00 in Lisbon).
The prison authority (SNAI) indicated that four people had died and that 33 inmates and a police officer were injured. Seven people were detained.
According to SNAI, these clashes were caused by the future transfer of some detainees “to the new high security prison” built by the Government of Ecuadorian President, Daniel Noboa, in the coastal province of Santa Elena (southwest), which is scheduled to open this month.
A few hours later, authorities announced the discovery of 27 more bodies, in an act of violence separate from that which occurred earlier in the morning. Most of these deaths were caused by asphyxiation inflicted by third parties, it was specified, suggesting hangings or strangulations.
At the end of September, armed clashes in the same prison caused 14 deaths, including a guard.
Ecuadorian prisons were placed under army control in 2024, when President Noboa declared the country in armed conflict against around twenty criminal organizations linked to international cartels. However, in August, eight of them, including Machala’s, were transferred to the police.
The highest number of victims of violence in prisons was recorded in 2021, with the death of more than 100 inmates in a prison in Guayaquil (southwest).
