Riots in Ecuador’s three overcrowded prisons have killed 75 inmates and injured several others
Quito … News Time
Riots in Ecuador’s three overcrowded prisons have killed at least 75 inmates and injured scores more, with ongoing feuds between various groups blamed for the riots. Security forces have been battling to regain control of prisons, while families of troubled prisoners are reportedly fighting outside prisons in the western Ecuadorian port city of Guayaquil. Waiting where, according to officials, 21 people were killed. In addition, according to Edmundo Moncayo, director of prison administration, 33 people were killed in Cuenca prison in the south and eight in Latacunga in the middle of the South American country. “We want a list of those killed,” said Daniela Soria, 29, one of 40 women out of Guayaquil prison. “We know the problems are not over because everyone there has a phone and my husband doesn’t call me,” she told AFP. Earlier, she received a WhatsApp audio message from her husband, Ricardo, who told AFP that her husband was “going to kill me. Get me out of here.”
Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno said in a statement on the social networking site Twitter that the gangs responsible for the riots were engaged in simultaneous violence in several prisons. Authorities are trying to take control, he said. The army has been deployed to help police quell the insurgency. The Office of Public Safety, an ombudsman for human rights, called the violence an “unprecedented massacre” and expressed concern about the lack of security in the country’s prisons reflects an increase in crime and violence within these facilities.
