The number of victims of the riots that broke out in a prison in Ecuador rose to 116, while the number of injured reached 80 in the Ecuador prison riots on 28 September 2021.
On Tuesday morning, inmates’ actions erupted in the prison “Benitícia del Litoral” in the city of “Guayaquil”, capital of the coastal province of “Gayas”; Because of the struggle for leadership inside the prison between gang members and organized crime.
According to an initial toll, these actions resulted in the killing of 24 prison inmates, in addition to the injury of 48, before another death toll of 100 dead and 52 wounded, announced on Wednesday by the director of the country’s prison service, Bolivar Garzón.
Late Wednesday, the country’s President, Guillermo Lasso, held a press conference in which he announced that the death toll had reached 116, the injured had reached 80, and he also declared a state of emergency in all of the country’s prisons for a period of 60 days.
In his statements, the president described the incident as “unfortunate,” adding, “It is unfortunate that prisons have turned into an arena of a power struggle between criminal gangs, and one of our first steps to deal with this phenomenon is to declare a state of emergency in prisons across the country.”
Lasso indicated that they will stand in solidarity with the relatives of the prisoners to protect their rights, continuing, “The government is making significant investments in infrastructure and monitoring technology due to the recurrent violence in prisons for several months. Thanks to this plan, oversight within prisons will be strengthened.”
On Wednesday, local media reports indicated that dozens of families of prisoners arrived at the prison to inquire about their relatives and demand accountability for those responsible for the inmates’ safety, while the government reinforced the deployment of the army outside the prison.
It is worth noting that on July 23, the country witnessed clashes between gang members in two different prisons, killing 21 people and wounding 35 others.
And Ecuador’s prisons include approximately 38,000 people, between convicts and detainees, and sometimes the actions of the people they witness end with rebellion.
In addition, 80 convicts have died as a result of fires that broke out due to a rebellion that began simultaneously inside prisons in 3 cities in the country on February 24 last.
