QUITO, Ecuador
Ecuadorian police and military troops on Wednesday raided the country's largest prison, the Litoral Penitentiary in Guayaquil, two days after inmates belonging to rival organized crime rings clashed, leaving two injured, President Guillermo Lasso said.
"Military and police
personnel are searching for weapons, ammunition, explosives and banned items
inside this center," Lasso wrote on social media platform X, previously
known as Twitter.
He added the raids will
continue "until the last day of my administration as a way to confront
corruption in the system and disarm the criminal organizations that operate
within the centers."
In the last three months,
Armed Forces and National Police personnel have regularly searched prisons as
part of a state of emergency decreed by the government for the entire
penitentiary system, following a massacre at the Litoral Penitentiary that left
31 inmates dead in July.
Under the state of emergency,
soldiers or police officers are allowed to enter prisons to seize weapons and
other banned items in coordination with the national prison administration
agency.
Wednesday's raid aimed to
"maintain order and security at the prison," the Armed Forces said on
social media.
The Litoral Penitentiary,
which houses some 5,600 inmates, has been the scene of constant clashes between
rival gangs linked to drug trafficking. Since February 2021, more than 400
inmates have been killed, according to official data.
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