Twelve prisoners died Friday in a penitentiary in Ecuador in new clashes, while six inmates were found hanged this week and three guards killed, the prosecutor's office said Saturday. Ecuadorian prisons are the scene of recurrent massacres between inmates, against a backdrop of rivalries between criminal groups vying for drug trafficking.
"An investigation has been opened to identify those responsible for the deaths of 12 inmates of the Littoral Penitentiary in Guayaquil," the prosecutor's office said on Twitter. Six inmates were found hanged Wednesday in this prison in Guayaquil, a large port city in southwestern Ecuador plagued by violence related to drug trafficking. The next day, three prison guards were killed outside the prison complex in Guyaquil. And on Friday, at least three prisoners were injured in gun clashes at the same prison.
Since February 2021, eight massacres have been recorded in these prisons, with more than 400 prisoners killed, most dismembered and burned. The country's main port on the Pacific coast, Guayaquil has in recent years become the hub and epicenter of drug trafficking in Ecuador, located between Colombia and Peru – the world's main cocaine producers.
- Ecuador
- Prison
- Death
- World