Activists on social media circulated the moment of the arrest of gang members who had taken hostages of the medical staff following they stormed a hospital in Ecuador.
Police in Ecuador have arrested seven armed men who had stormed a hospital, trying to kill a teenager who was in the hospital.
The armed gang members took a number of nursing staff hostage, and exchanged gunfire with the police before they were arrested.
All the hostages were freed without any injuries, officials said.
The gang members intended to kill a famous 17-year-old known as Dirty Face, who was believed to belong to a rival gang.
Dirty Face is in the intensive care unit at the hospital, where he is recovering from his gunshot wounds.
The armed gang members had held five hospital medical staff hostage for more than an hour, an employee told local newspaper El Diario.
Activists circulated on social media a video clip showing masked men carrying weapons pushing a woman who was screaming through one of the hospital gates and forcing her back inside the building.
Other staff at the hospital, located in Chune, western Ecuador, said they locked themselves in hospital rooms while gunmen stormed the rooms, looking for the teenager.
A hospital official told El Diario newspaper that the gunmen “apparently did not know the distribution of hospital rooms, so these petty criminals were combing all the rooms in the building.”
He added, “Thank God and the police that we are still here alive to tell what happened.”
Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso praised the police, saying their intervention had saved many lives.
The President of Ecuador posted on Twitter a video showing armed officers entering the hospital building before arresting the gang members.
In recent years, Ecuador has witnessed increasing violence by armed gangs, some of whom resort to horrific practices such as beheadings. The country also witnessed a series of bloody prison riots.
Analysts attribute this increasing violence in Ecuador to Mexican gangs whose activities have spread into the country, where they recruit local gangs to smuggle cocaine.
Since taking office last year, Ecuador’s president has declared a state of emergency in the country several times, in an effort to curb the growing violence.
Earlier this November, President Laso said that attacks by the increasingly powerful drug cartels amounted to a declaration of war.
