QUITO,
Equador
More than 60 inmates were killed Tuesday in the worst prison riots in Ecuador’s history, as rival gangs battled for control of the country’s growing drug trade.
The violence broke out in a series of coordinated mutinies on
Tuesday morning in three large prisons across the country, according to the
police. It was not until the afternoon that the authorities regained control.
Videos recorded by inmates and shared on social media showed
beheaded corpses and mutilated arms and legs, shocking a nation unused to
massacre. The ghastly imagery made clear just how far Ecuador has fallen into
the violent spiral of organized drug crime.
“This sort of thing was unthinkable in our country,” Ricardo
Camacho, who once headed Ecuador’s prison system, said in an interview. “This
is a tragedy, a true shock.”
The government said Tuesday’s attacks were part of a feud
between rival drug gangs.
In December, the leader of a prominent local gang called Los
Choneros was assassinated in a shopping mall in the port city of Manta, which
has become an important hub for cocaine trafficking to Central America.
On Tuesday, the battle moved to the prisons as Los Choneros
members retaliated for their leader’s death, said Gen. Edmundo Moncayo, the
head of Ecuador’s prison system. Many of the victims, he said, were not tied to
organized crime but simply caught up in the battle.
“Two armed groups tried to seize the criminal leadership of the
detention centers,” General Moncayo said.
Although Ecuador does not itself grow large quantities of coca
leaf, it is flanked by the world’s two largest producers, Colombia and Peru.
No comments:
Post a Comment