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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Ecuador drug violence: Six police wounded in prison riot |
| 2022-11-05 |
| [ALAHRAM] Six police were wounded Thursday in the latest prison riot to hit Ecuador, officials said, as the country is gripped by violence blamed on organized crime groups waging a deadly drug war. The six were hurt while trying to put down an uprising at the infamous Guayas 1 prison in southwestern port city Guayaquil, police said on Twitter. A source at the SNAI prison authority who asked not to be named told AFP that the police officers were confronted by inmates with guns and explosives. Ecuador -- once a relatively peaceful neighbor of major cocaine producers Colombia and Peru -- has seen a wave of violent crime that authorities blame on turf battles between gangs with ties to Mexican cartels. Civilians have increasingly been caught up in the bloodshed that has claimed more than 60 police lives since last year. Hundreds of inmates have died in Ecuador's overcrowded prisons since February last year -- many beheaded or burned as the gang war is waged also behind bars -- especially at Guayas 1. Widespread corruption among guards allows inmates to lay their hands on guns and explosives, among other contraband. Following attacks Tuesday in which five police officers and a civilian were killed, President Guillermo Lasso declared a state of emergency and nightly curfews in the western provinces of Guayas, of which Guayaquil is the capital, and Esmeraldas. |
| Posted by:Fred |
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| Posted by: trailing wife 2022-11-05 22:24 |
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| Posted by: trailing wife 2022-11-05 17:01 |
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| Posted by: Slavising Unineting5672 2022-11-05 08:50 |