Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa Monday announced a 30-day extension to the curfew from 11:00 pm to 5:00 am decreed on Jan. 8 when a wave of violence erupted nationwide as notorious prison inmates escaped unleashing riots at several corrections facilities and other attacks by drug-trafficking gangs that resulted in over 2,000 arrests.
Ecuadorean authorities arrested 40 gang members this past weekend after they tried to seize the José Cevallos Ruiz hospital in Yaguachi, in the province of Guayas province, killing one person and taking several hostages as one of their comrades was being treated.
Ecuadorean authorities Thursday arrested two people in connection with Wednesday's murder of Prosecutor César Suárez, who was handling the case of the Jan. 9 assault on a TV station amid the growing wave of drug trafficking, terrorism, and organized crime violence. Various guns and two vehicles were also seized in the operation, it was explained.
Ecuadorean Prosecutor César Suárez who was handling the investigation into the Jan. 9 seizure of a Public TV station by a drug-trafficking gang, was shot dead Wednesday in Guayaquil, adding to the South American country's wave of crime and violence. Suárez took over 20 gunshots, it was reported. National Police specialized units have been assigned to the case.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric Font Monday said during an engagement in the Coquimbo Region that his administration needed to do things to not have to go through the crisis Ecuador is experiencing. “We have to ask ourselves how we do things so that we don't get to that place,” Boric underlined.
Only five of the 48 prison inmates that escaped Monday from the Esmeraldas jailhouse were recaptured later in the day according to sources from Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa's administration quoted by local media.
Ecuador's forces retook control of all the country's prisons and freed some 150 corrections officers who were being held hostage by the rioting inmates, it was reported this past weekend. However, one guard was killed during a shootout in the operation.
Ecuador's President Daniel Noboa Friday said his government would be accepting the military cooperation offered by Argentina and the United States among other countries because the situation did not allow for egos to stand in the way.
Ecuadorean authorities Thursday confirmed drug-trafficking gangs continued to have a total of 178 hostages in prisons nationwide while the number of casualties after four days of internal turmoil was updated to 16 as the outlaws retaliated following law enforcement forces operations. In this scenario, daily life is gradually getting back to normal.
Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa underlined Wednesday that we are at war and I will not give in. He made those remarks one day after multiple uprisings by drug trafficking groups particularly in Quito and Guayaquil resulted in at least 18 deaths and over 300 arrests, in addition to the people wounded, for which the head of state declared an internal armed conflict against terrorist organizations believed to be 20,000 strong.