Ecuador’s security forces on Sunday took back control of several prisons that had fallen into the hands of gang members, after securing the release of more than 200 officials held hostage inside the jails.Once a bastion of peace situated between major cocaine producers, Ecuador has been plunged into crisis after years of expansion by the transnational cartels that use its ports to ship the drug to the United States and Europe.Noboa has vowed not to bow before the violence, giving orders to “neutralize” the criminal groups responsible.
“I believe we are going to win and I will not stop fighting until we do,” he told the BBC on Friday.
Narco gangs often use prisons as criminal offices, from where they manage drug trafficking, order assassinations, administer the proceeds of crime and fight to the death with rivals for power.
It is in the prisons that much of the gang wars are fought, with brutal clashes between inmates leaving more than 460 dead, many beheaded or burned alive, since February 2021.
Ecuador’s murder rate quadrupled between 2018 and 2022, as the criminal gangs found a foothold in the country.
Last year was the worst yet, with 7,800 murders and a record 220 tons of drugs seized.
Noboa has announced he plans to build two “super maximum” security prisons with a capacity for more than 3,000 people, with proposals for future “prison ships” also on the table.
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