The revolt broke out on Monday in the Latacunga prison, south of Quito and the capital of Cotopaxi province.
Despite the deployment of 600 soldiers and police, the “riots” continued this Tuesday. “In the course of the morning (…) we have had eleven people injured,” said Oswaldo Coronel, governor of Cotopaxi.
In the two days of clashes, 15 prisoners have died and 44 are wounded, according to the most recent official balance.
“It is very sad to say, but the bodies are mostly dismembered,” said Franklin Poveda, public defender (ex officio) of the province.
According to official versions, the inmates got into a knife fight and gunshots.
New “detonations” were heard early from the outskirts of the prison, which forced the evacuation of administrative personnel, detailed the SNAI, the state agency in charge of the prison system.
Outside the jail, crying women shouted the names of their relatives. “They don’t tell me anything. A month ago my little house with my son burned down and now my other son I don’t know if he is alive or dead, ”Inés Puente, 70, who arrived at the scene dressed entirely in black, told AFP.
The authorities surrounded the prison with metal fences. The ambulance traffic was incessant. Equally desperate family members rebuked the police due to the lack of information about their relatives.
– “The boss” –
Two massacres had already been registered in the same prison in 2021, when the bleeding began in Ecuadorian prisons as a result of organized crime disputes.
More than 400 inmates have died in the last almost two years in Ecuador’s prisons, in hair-raising massacres with machetes decapitated and incinerated bodies.
The president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, sent on Monday night a “message of condolence and solidarity” with the relatives of the victims in the modern Latacunga prison, which houses 4,300 prisoners, several of them highly dangerous.
This time the violence would have been unleashed by the murder of Leandro Norero, a 36-year-old drug trafficker known by the alias of El Patron.
“From what we can know, preliminarily, the citizen Leandro Norero would be among the victims,” said Jorge Flores, deputy director of the SNAI.
From the detention centers, gangs such as Los Chone Killers – to which Norero allegedly belonged -, Los Choneros, Los Lobos and Los Tiguerones handle drug trafficking. The organizations wage a war inside and outside the prisons for the control of the business.
“After the corresponding skills (…) it will be possible to confirm or not” Norero’s death, reported the Prosecutor’s Office through Twitter.
El Patron was arrested in May on charges of drug trafficking and money laundering during an operation carried out in Guayaquil, the main Ecuadorian port through which an important part of the cocaine leaves for Europe and the United States.
Norero also faced an arrest warrant in Peru.
According to the GK portal, an expert on prison violence, Norero was murdered “the same day” that he was to be charged with drug trafficking.
The riot erupted after an attack “orchestrated against Norero and his security, at least six prisoners,” the news outlet said, citing inmates who spoke on condition of anonymity.
– Torture sites –
His probable death could trigger new clashes between prisoners. Now “we have to be vigilant because that can happen,” said Interior Minister Juan Zapata.
With capacity for 30,000 inmates, Ecuadorian prisons have an estimated overpopulation of 1,900.
The war in the prisons also extends to the streets of cities like Guayaquil (southwest), where a large prison complex operates with some 13,100 detainees.
An unsuccessful government-created pacification committee said in April that Ecuadorian prisons “are considered warehouses for human beings and torture centers.”
In 2021, prison overcrowding was 30%, but it was reduced with presidential pardons and the application of benefits for good conduct for prisoners.
Ecuador, with 18 million inhabitants, is between Colombia and Peru, the world’s largest producers of cocaine.
In 2021, it seized a record 210 tons of drugs. That same year the homicide rate almost doubled, closing with 14 murders per 100,000 people.
Ecuador went from being a drug transit country to becoming one of the main drug trafficking points, according to authorities.
