MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Ecuadorean Anti-Drug Lieutenant Colonel slain

Cedeño was in charge of military operations against drug trafficking and mafias hitting the city of Durán

Ecuadorean Lieutenant Colonel Porfirio Cedeño was murdered by hitmen near a Guayaquil prison. The commanding officer of the Armed Forces' anti-drug trafficking Special Operations Group took at least 20 shots, according to local media.

“He was on his way to a ceremony in the city of Manta,” to participate in a military ceremony for the thirtieth anniversary of the aerial victory in the 1995 Cenepa War between Ecuador and Peru, local Police Chief Santiago Tuston told reporters.

The gunmen “managed to reach him some 200 meters before reaching the penitentiary and opened fire” late Friday, Tuston also explained. In addition, Cedeño's driver was wounded in the leg and taken to a hospital. The Lieutenant Colonel was riding a gray van, which was left on the road with broken windows and multiple bullet impacts.

Defense Minister Gian Carlo Loffredo said that Ecuador's enemy now was not the neighboring country of Peru, but drug trafficking and insecurity.

Cedeño was in charge of military operations against drug trafficking and mafias hitting the city of Durán, neighboring Guayaquil. The area is considered a center of growing criminal activity in Ecuador.

The Lieutenant Colonel's murder came after Wednesday's assassination of René Zamora, in the canton (municipality) of Olmedo, in the province of Manabí, neighboring Guayas, which is another area under a state of emergency.

“These events are evidence of the state of war in which Ecuador is immersed and the dedication of our Armed Forces to the country's security,” the Ecuadorean Government said in a statement. “The state of emergency is still in force. We are giving our will, our dedication, and our fight, but the tools must be maintained,” it went on.